


Scars

by IndianSummer13



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mild Smut, Miscarriage, Model!Betty, Photographer!Jug, Pining, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reeeeeally Slow, Slow Burn, Smut That's Less Mild But Still Tasteful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-04-23 18:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 102,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14338842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndianSummer13/pseuds/IndianSummer13
Summary: When rising photographer Jughead Jones scores a photo shoot with model-of-the-moment Betty Cooper, he expects to use it, simply, to help his career take off.What he doesn't expect, is to be so enraptured with her beauty.Or for the single shoot to turn into a series of stunning portraits,Or to witness the marks on her palms grow into burns across her skin..What he doesn’t expect either, is to be her salvation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before you start reading this, please be aware of the tags. So as not to give too much of the plot away already, I’ll continue to add to them as we go, but they should be your warning. This story covers some dark themes so if that’s not your thing, then this might not be for you. I have done thorough research and used personal experiences to try and make this as accurate as possible but of course, it’s a fictional story with fictional characters.  
> If you’re still eager to read, then I really hope you enjoy :) x

_._

_Maybe we have made her blind_

_So she tries to cover up her pain and cut her woes away_

_'Cause cover girls don't cry after their face is made_

 

 

Where he _really_ wants to photograph her, is in the lush, thick green of a rainforest. Maybe somewhere else tropical could work too - Kauai, the so-called garden island of Hawaii, or the Virgin Islands, or Ban Gioc-Detian Falls, sitting on the border of China and Vietnam with its cascading water and tumbling emerald canopies.

Instead, due to the budget constraints of the magazine that’s hired him, Jughead is setting up at an old warehouse in Brooklyn, trying to think of new ways to reinvent the cliched shots of _Beautiful Young Thing in Ugly Old Place._

His subject isn’t yet here. Of course she isn’t, he thinks, because she’s a model and when are models concerned with anyone’s schedule but their own? It _is_ early, granted, but the reason they’re here before seven am is because the warehouse is situated on the river and has enough large windows that light from the city’s sunrise should pour in - as long as it doesn’t rain. None is forecast, but Jughead is well-aware that photographing Betty Cooper of catwalk and cover fame could be his big break, and he’s not about to put it past the elements to spoil that for him.

There is a rail of clothing in the corner of the room; a screen (for her to change behind, he figures) and a sort-of cabinet on wheels that apparently, judging by the current set-up, houses all of Sephora’s product lines.

He’s just taking a couple of test shots when he hears the footsteps of someone ascending the iron stairs. He sets the camera in the tripod and turns towards the top of the staircase where he gets his first _Actual Sighting_ of a celebrity.

It’s not what he’d expected.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she gushes apologetically, hands laden with two brown bags, her own purse (which looks, he notes, rather expensive) and a cardboard coffee cup tray. “I thought seeing as we’re all here so early, you might want food and coffee and -” she pauses, looking up at him. “You must be Mr Jones. Hi, I’m Betty Cooper.”

She says it like he wouldn’t know who she is - like the reason they’re all here isn’t solely for her, but for something else.

“It’s,” he swallows, suddenly a little nervous, and it makes him kind of angry. “Just Jughead.”

Her smile is warm and it seems genuine. “Jughead,” she says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He watches as Betty offers everyone one of the coffee cups from the tray. He counts four cups and four people, so when she reaches him, he takes the penultimate one and finds, to his pleasure, that she hasn’t ruined it with cream.

“Thank you,” he nods, and she smiles again.

“You’re welcome.”

It transpires that the brown bags Betty has brought house a variety of baked goods: croissants, a couple of pan au chocolats, some lemon-poppy seed muffins and even some donuts.

The woman in charge of the clothes she’s supposed to wear begins arranging them on the rack based on the order in which she’ll put them on, and a dark blue cocktail dress appears first in line.

Betty herself is sipping coffee, but has made no attempt to eat any of the delicious-looking snacks she’s brought. Jughead takes a bite of his donut and asks,

“You’re not going to have anything?”

Everyone else is eating, and it seems a little strange that she isn’t, but she shakes her head.

“Not if you’re photographing me in that dress!” Her tone appears joking, but he figures that behind it is complete seriousness. It must be strange, he thinks, to be paid not to eat. Or, at least, not to eat anything that tastes good.  

As he takes his second and third bites of the donut, he hears Betty ask the makeup artist about her daughter, and wonders whether he might’ve slightly misjudged the model he’s about to photograph. His primary source of information about her has been, ashamedly, the internet gossip sites and social media. As much as he hates it, Instagram is a huge tool in promoting his own work and from his research over the past week, he knows the hashtag _bettycooper_ will almost undoubtedly see a surge in the number of people who see his posts.

It might be superficial and crafted, but he knows he’d be stupid not to document at least part of this shoot.

Almost an hour later, Betty is ready and Jughead is forced to mentally remind himself that the subject today is not the setting, nor her, but the clothes.

It’s a difficult task.

He positions her close to the second window from the left so that the light is spilling over the warehouse’s old floorboards and illuminating the space behind her. It’s a contrast to the dark dress and he’s almost in awe of the way she works, turning this way and that at his every ask.

Next, she changes into a silk shirt and a skirt that reaches her calves. They’re both red - different fabrics of course - and the makeup artist switches whatever lipstick she’d been previously wearing to one that’s red too. Jughead asks her to lean against the wall, which she does, and everything about her seems so effortless as he snaps away.

The sun rises further in the sky outside as they work through the selection of clothes. He’s not entirely sure what the theme is, or if the clothes are all from the same designer, but he doesn’t ask.

  
  
  
  


What he hadn’t expected, was for Betty to be so animated. He can’t help but listen as she chats away to the makeup artist (who, he’s learned over the course of the shoot without her ever having officially introduced herself, is named Raelle) about her daughter and Christmas and her plans for a summer vacation to Florida. Throughout the morning, she gives away very little about herself, and Jughead wonders whether this is a conscious decision, or if she really _is_ just that interested in Raelle’s life.

Her final outfit change is into another dress - this time, in navy lace. The light has dulled a little, a collection of clouds gathering in front of the tentative morning sun, and so he asks her to move closer to the window. The walls are dark and he needs light in order to ensure the dress stands out.

(It is _not_ the way he’d choose to photograph her if he were to be given the choice)

Considering the length of time it had taken to get set up, Jughead is somewhat surprised at how little time it takes for everyone to be ready to leave. The stylist, Briana, leaves first with her rail of clothing. Raelle goes next, having tidied away everything back into her cabinet-on-wheels which Jughead helps her carry down the staircase.

Betty is dressed back in the clothes she’d arrived in: jeans and a white sweater that continually slips from her left shoulder, a grey scarf and a pair of white keds. She’s pulled her hair out of the twisted knot it had been styled in and when he looks up from his laptop where he’s reviewing the pictures again, he finds her removing the makeup with some cotton wool and liquid from a green-coloured bottle.

“It’s a lot of makeup to wear this early in a morning,” she smiles by way of explanation, and he simply nods, somewhat surprised she’s still here. “I haven’t seen you at any shoots before,” she adds, pausing the movement of the cotton wool beneath her right eye.

“I uh,” he starts, dragging a hand from the back of his neck to the side of it. “I usually do landscapes.”

The last thing he wants to admit to her is that this is his first big shoot. Of course, he’s taken pictures of people before (though every one of _those_ pictures had been to focus on the person and not their clothing) but as his own projects. None have ever been for a publication like this.

“You have your work on there?” Betty asks, nodding towards the laptop as she continues to clean the heavy navy shadow from her eyes. They’re so green, he thinks, like emeralds. They should’ve given her something to bring that out.

 _He_ would’ve given her something her to bring that out.

“From today?” Jughead asks. “Yes, but it hasn’t been edited -”

“- I don’t mean from today,” she interrupts, almost like she’s embarrassed. “I don’t want to see my… I’m not a masochist.”

Masochist? he questions silently, wondering whether she’s selected the wrong word; whether she’d meant _narcissist._ But Betty continues,

“I mean, do you have your landscape work on there?”

Maybe she’s testing him, he figures. Maybe she wants to determine the quality of his work before she allows for herself to be printed on the front cover of the magazine.  

“I do,” he replies. “It’s...did you want to see?”

“Of course,” she says, like it’s obvious.

He minimises the window displaying her pictures and opens his final edits folder containing the photographs that have made it onto his Instagram page: his portfolio of sorts.

“You like the city,” she says as the file loads, displaying slightly larger than thumbnail-sized versions of the photos. It’s not untrue, he _does_ like photographing the city, but he doesn’t tell her that the main reason for most of the collection featuring buildings is that he hasn’t ever really left - not to purposely visit anywhere else for photography reasons at least.

“Yeah,” he replies instead.

“There,” she says happily, removing the cotton wool from her skin. “All done.”

Jughead looks up, and at first, it’s just a quick glance - a silent acknowledgement that he’s heard her as he’s opening the first photograph file. But then, he looks at her again: the softness of her skin that comes from being young; the little mole on her chin that had been hidden; the bright almost-meadow green of her irises.  

“They didn’t need to put all of that makeup on you,” he says before he can stop himself.

There’s a strange expression on her face, almost like hesitation, and then, as quickly as it crosses her features, it leaves again, her faced arranged back into careful composure.

“Everyone looks better with a little helping hand,” she smiles.

He wants to say that’s not true: she’d looked different, sure, but not _better._ She looks beautiful like _this_ too.

“I took this one last week,” he tells her as the image of a wet Chinatown street fills the screen. The buildings stretch high on either side of the photograph, a water tank standing towards the top centre, with the eye drawn towards the reds of the lit restaurants. It’s one of his favourites.

“Wow!” Betty breathes in a way that makes him think she might actually mean it. “It’s stunning.”

Heat blooms at the back of his neck and he rubs it away.

“Do you have more?”

“Yes,” he replies, ”But this is the one that’s part of my portfolio - the one I put on my Instagram.”

“You have Insta?” she questions. “Let me follow you. What’s your handle?”

Jughead blinks as she pulls out her phone, typing in a passcode deftly. “JJones_images,” he says.

She types quickly and then must find his profile without trouble. “Done.”

Instantaneously, he feels his own phone vibrate in his pocket with the notification. He leaves it where it is.

“What other shots do you have?”

He shows her one he’d taken at night on the subway as the train had rattled through Penn Station; another of Brooklyn Bridge shrouded in mist; a dilapidated, graffitied playground in Harlem.

“They’re all so…” she pauses and Jughead finishes the statement for her.

“Dark?”

“I was going to say beautiful.”

She smells like expensive perfume. It’s in his nose and his throat and it should maybe be too much, except it isn’t.

He doesn’t really know how to respond to her praise, and so he says, “You must’ve seen lots of beautiful places.”

Her mouth twitches and then opens, but no words come out. He wonders whether she changes what she’s about to say, because she simply murmurs,

“Some,” and adds nothing more.

It’s quiet for a moment, even the city outside of the warehouse rather still in the morning air.

“Don’t you like photographing people?” Betty asks suddenly. “In all of your pictures, they seem out of focus.” She blanches at her own words, obviously feeling as though she might’ve offended him, because she quickly gabbles, “I mean, not that they look unpurposefully blurred or that it’s a bad thing or -”

 _“- Betty,”_ he says gently, touching a hand to her arm and then realising what he’s done, dropping it quickly. “It’s intentional. And I don’t mind photographing people, just…”

“The city’s more interesting?” she suggests with a wry smile.  

“Not even that. I think people are interesting too, just...photographing someone else is a very personal thing if you’re doing it for a reason that isn’t…” he doesn’t finish, and Betty’s eyebrows crease into something of a frown.

“Today, for example,” he starts again. “I wasn’t photographing _you._ ” He rubs at his neck again. “I mean, I _was,_ but really, it’s the clothes that the observer is supposed to see. So even though you’re the one wearing them and we’re in this specific setting, the eye is supposed to be drawn, above all else, to what you’re wearing. And if I were to photograph someone for the eye to be drawn to _them,_ then it would be very different.”

He’s said too much. He’s done his classic Jughead-Jones-speaks-without-thinking spiel and now he’s no doubt offended their beautiful model and -

Her voice interrupts his internal panic. “Different how?”

He swallows. “The way you use light, what the subject wears, their expression.”

“So if you were going to shoot me now,” she begins, taking her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily before releasing it again having left tiny indents. “What would that look like?”

Since he was a kid, Jughead has prided himself on being able to read situations. It is, quite probably, a result of his childhood; of having to figure out what was happening in order to know whether to run or hide or stay.

He can not, for the life of him, read this one.  

“You’d stand by the window,” he says eventually, his voice uncertain even though he knows without question that this is where he’d position her given complete freedom.

Betty crosses the room and positions herself close to where he photographed her earlier.

“Like this?”

“Yes,” he replies. “Or uh, maybe a little further down. So the light beam is hitting your eyes.”

She moves two windows to the right. “Here?”

He pulls the lead connecting his camera to the laptop out of the port. “Yes.”

With the camera seated in his right hand, he moves closer to her.

“Turn towards the window,” he instructs. “Your whole body.”

The sweater slips from her shoulder again and she goes to move it back.

“No,” Jughead tells her softly. “Leave it like that.”

A small smile tugs at her lips.

“Bring your right hand up so it’s resting lightly on the lead pane.”

She does, and he steps closer.

“And now look out towards the south.”

Closer still he moves, until the shot is almost perfect.

“Can you move your hand onto the next pane up?” he asks. “It’s filtering the light a little too much like that.”

Betty does as he asks, the cuff of her sweater riding further up her arm, and that’s when he notices the red marks there. She catches him looking, and quickly angles her wrist towards the glass.

He’s not naive - he knows what those marks mean.

He makes sure to keep his tone level when he says, “And hold it there.”

The camera clicks and records the images, one after another in quick succession, picture after picture of the sharp jut of her chin; the angular rise of her bare shoulder; the large squares of light patterning her skin.

He clears his throat. “Okay.”

She drops her hand quickly, hiding her fist under the cuff of her sweater. Jughead wants to say something, if only to ask her if she’s okay, but he has no idea what words he’s supposed to use.

In the end, he doesn’t use any.

It’s Betty who speaks next, adopting a strange voice and asking, “So, how do I look?”   

“Great,” he manages. “You look great.”

  
  
  


“So?” Archie asks over the phone as Jughead is devouring his final slice of pizza. “How was it photographing Betty Cooper?”

“Is it _you_ asking this question, or Veronica?”

There’s a telling pause. “Ronnie.”

The corner of his lips lifts in a half-smile. “She was…” he pauses, looking at the photograph currently filling his laptop screen. “Great.”

“He says she was great,” he hears Archie telling his girlfriend. There are muffled voices - Veronica asking another question no doubt - before Archie returns to the line. “She also wants to know whether she’s as pretty as she looks in the magazines.”

This time, there is no pause. “Even more so,” Jughead replies as he continues to stare at the photograph of her.

The conversation moves on to Archie’s job and then to Veronica’s upcoming birthday party before it reaches a natural end. They both hang up, Jughead finishes his final pizza slice, and then continues to look through the photographs from his shoot with Betty earlier in the day.

There are a few which he moves to his ‘outtakes’ folder, but the rest he looks through a final time, happy with the few adjustments regarding colour and tone he’s made, then emails them across to the magazine.

From the kitchen counter, he brings over the spare baked goods Betty had brought to the shoot and had given to him to bring home.

“Someone might as well enjoy them,” she’d said, and Jughead had gotten the distinct impression that that _someone_ wouldn’t ever be her.

He grabs his phone from the arm of the couch and unlocks it, opening the Instagram app. He clicks onto Betty’s profile first, scrolling back through the pictures he looked at once he reached his apartment, and again at various points throughout the afternoon.

Jughead has seen pretty girls before. His eyes weren’t particularly open to them in high school (there were, of course, other things on his mind back then) but when he made it to college, things were different. Girls talked to him and invited him to parties and kissed him when he was standing awkwardly by the door, hoping Archie would be ready to leave.

Betty Cooper is not pretty. She’s breathtaking.

He goes next, to his own page, scrolling through the portfolio of photographs and realising that Betty had been right and the vast majority of them _are_ of the city - in particular the latest ones.

Could he… _no,_ he thinks. He doesn’t have her permission. Unless…

He hits the back button until he arrives at Betty’s page again. He hits the little folder of her tagged pictures, taps on the one of her taken in a studio for Glamour magazine and reads the caption again.

_Worked with the beautiful @BettyCooperOfficial today._

He sees she’s liked the post and so, before he can think of a million reasons not to, from his laptop he uploads to his own page his favourite picture of her looking out across the East River, along with the caption,

_Thank you for today._

He hits ‘post’, spends ten minutes internally chastising himself for effectively using the fact that Betty Cooper is a pretty famous (by all accounts) model to get his work out there, and then decides to remove the picture and send her a message to actually _ask_ her first.

As he’s opening the app to delete the picture though, he gets a notification of a comment. It’s from Betty herself and says, simply,

“Any time.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your support regarding this fic :)  
> I should add that Chic here is tagged as Chic Smith, not Chic Cooper, because he is not related to Betty in this story. You'll see :)

_ I pretend I’m not hurt _

_ I walk about the world like I’m having fun _

 

Betty presses the little green and white capsule beyond her lips and swallows, well aware of the cliche she’s living up to. She’s tired and desperate to go back to bed, but the cab will be arriving within the next twenty minutes and she hasn’t seen Chic properly for a couple days.

He’s on the couch when she enters the living room, a half-empty beer bottle seated on the coffee table near his feet. She briefly registers that the video game he’s playing is a two-player, and stifles a yawn as she asks him,

“Still on European time?”

He’d been asleep until close to seven the previous evening, and as far as Betty’s aware, he hasn’t yet been to bed.

“Jet lag’s a bitch,” he replies without pausing the game or looking at her, and she goes to stand behind him, kneading his shoulders with her fingertips. 

“I know,” Betty sighs, and drops a kiss to his hair. She can tell that he hasn’t washed it and wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. “You want coffee? I’m going to make some before I go.”

“I’m good,” he grunts, still focused on his game, and she takes her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing for a moment. 

“It’s nearly six-thirty Chic,” she says gently, eyeing the beer again. “Maybe you should switch to something else.”

He doesn’t answer, and Betty takes two mugs from the shelf, setting them beside the machine as the dark liquid filters into the pot. She spoons in two heaped piles of Splenda while she’s waiting for the remainder of the coffee to drip through, and checks her purse again for her phone, passport and wallet. They’re there - as they always are - and she twists her hair into a bun, securing it loosely on the top of her head with the elastic from her wrist. 

Chic loses whatever race he’s playing, and lets his controller fall onto the table. It makes a clattering sound and she tries not to wince at the thought of the scratched glass. 

She sets his mug of coffee down on one of the coasters and bends to kiss him, tasting beer on her lips.

“How long are you gone for?” he asks.

“Just the night. Maybe we can do something tomorrow evening?” she suggests, taking a sip of her coffee. It’s hot and burns her tongue, but it feels good as she swallows. 

He grins. “Darla’s having a thing.”

Betty’s heart sinks. She knows what a  _ thing  _ is.  “It’s been a while since it was just you and me. We could just stay in and watch a movie?”

“That shit’s boring Betty,” Chic replies, reaching for the beer as opposed to the coffee she’s made. She says nothing to counter his statement, just raises the mug to her lips once more and takes a larger sip.

She manages almost all of the coffee before having to leave, and calls out her goodbye over her shoulder. Chic starts up a new game and simply lifts a hand in response.

  
  
  
  
  


On the way to the airport, she pulls out her phone and checks the notifications. Most of them are Instagram-related, though there are several emails she’s going to have to respond to when she’s feeling a little more awake. On the horizon, the sun is starting to bleed its colours across the sky and she thinks of the photographer yesterday with his obvious inexperience at capturing people, but his clear expertise at working with the landscape. 

Betty snaps a quick picture on her phone. It’s a little blurred considering the speed at which the cab is travelling, but the colours are pretty and the buildings don’t look quite as imposing as they sometimes appear. She thinks about sending it to Jughead - the only person she can immediately think of who might appreciate the contrast of the pastel purple and pink width of the sky, and the dark slim spires of the city’s architecture. 

She decides against it, hitting ‘discard post’ until she’s back on the app’s homepage. 

There are already tens of thousands of likes on the picture of her at the warehouse yesterday, plus numerous comments: 

_ Stunning. Beautiful. So pretty! Gorgeous.  _

There are plenty of emojis too: the one with heart eyes; fire; dancing lady in the red dress; generic heart.

Nobody mentions the way Jughead has used a black and white shot so that everything appears so much softer than it had been in reality. They don’t talk about the way the light is hitting her eyes either.

Betty decides, perhaps egotistically, that it might be one of the nicest photographs anyone’s ever taken of her. 

As the cab speeds towards Forest Hills, she scrolls through the other pictures on his page, pausing at one close to the bottom which is of a neon-lit diner. She assumes the photograph has been taken from the parking lot, and is very obviously not in the city judging by the huddle of trees surrounding it. There is no caption and the name of the place is blurred: a streak of red dragged across the black sky. It looks cosy, Betty thinks, like the handful of cafes back in Yellow Springs. A little more retro perhaps, but cosy nonetheless. It makes her yearn for the strawberry milkshake she hasn’t had in years, and she silently reminds herself to buy water once she gets to the airport. Travelling does little for her skin, and combined with the lack of sleep she’s been getting lately, she’s likely heading for a breakout. 

She taps the little heart icon on Jughead’s picture and then comments,

_ I like the colours _

Her eyes remain closed for the remainder of the journey to JFK.

  
  
  
  
  


By the time Betty switches her phone back on after landing in Mexico, it’s nearly five in the evening. There are all the usual notifications that come as the result of having had her phone switched off for close to eleven hours, plus one from Jughead in response to her comment on the diner:

_ Mere colour can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways  _

She stares at the photograph again as she inches her way along the security queue and finally closes the app when she becomes next in line.

Her shoot isn’t until the following day - at a beach in Cabo - so she takes a cab to the hotel, orders a plain shrimp salad via room service, and falls asleep on the bed before it arrives.  

The knock on her door signalling the delivery of food wakes her, and she stretches lazily on her way to open it.

“Thank you,” she tells the man who sets the tray on the table pointed towards the sliding doors.

“Is here okay Ms Cooper?” he asks.

“Perfect.”

Betty stifles a yawn, tips generously, and then tugs open the door to the balcony overlooking the ocean as he leaves. 

The breeze is cooling but not cold, and she allows it to wash over her face before she sits. Below, the waves tumble against the sand, dragging it into wavy lines, and she watches a sandpiper root around at the shore. 

Betty pierces a shrimp with her fork and takes her time in chewing - a skill she has to remind herself to use when all she really wants to do is scarf the whole thing down and then order ice cream. 

By the time she finishes, the sun has sunk low in the sky, and - in contrast to the pastels of the morning’s sunrise - is spilling bright oranges, golds and reds over the ocean. She raises her phone and takes a picture, uploading it to Instagram with the caption,

_ Colours _

An hour or so later, when she’s reaching over to turn out the bedside lamp, she checks her phone one final time and sees a notification:

_ @itskkeller, @NYMagency, @JJones_images and 960 others liked your post _

  
  
  
  
  


The following morning when her alarm sounds, Betty feels more refreshed than she has in a while. Her stomach rumbles, protesting at having only been granted several cups of sweet coffee, some pineapple, and the shrimp salad she’d ordered from room service in the past 24 hours. 

Although the shoot in a few hours’ time is for a swimwear line and she knows that she probably shouldn’t eat, she orders the yoghurt, granola and berry compote from the breakfast menu in an act of silent rebellion only she’ll know about, and eats it out on the balcony when it arrives. 

Before leaving in the car sent by the Mexican magazine she’ll be featuring in, she makes sure to take her Prozac and birth control, and pulls her phone from the charging lead beside the bed.

Set up already on the beach when Betty arrives are curtains for her to change behind, the screens and lamps for the photographer to use, the hair and makeup team and, of course, the swimwear she’ll be modelling. 

She greets everyone with a, “Good morning,” and takes advantage of the bottles of water available for everyone to drink. 

Her first swimsuit is an all-in-one striped piece which has a high cut on the leg and a balconette-style top. It’s actually something Betty would buy if she saw it in a store, and she wonders whether she might be able to take it back with her. It isn’t uncommon, she’s found over the course of her... job? (she’s not really sure it’s a  _ career _ ) for designers to give her some of the pieces she’s modelled as either a thank-you or further advertising.

She steps out from behind the curtain and immediately, the hair stylist fusses with a particular strand of hair that obviously isn’t where she wants it to be, despite the fact that Betty has yet to walk the few feet to stand in front of the ocean where the photographer is waiting. 

Someone puts some bangles on her wrists, which means she doesn’t have to angle her arms to hide the marks there, and then the screen is held up to Betty’s left, shielding some of the sun, and she strikes the poses she’s told to: one leg bent behind the other; hands dipping and skimming the water; bent forwards towards the camera; laughing at an imaginary person out of shot; twirling round towards the sea. 

“Okay, next suit,” the photographer barks abruptly, and she heads back towards the curtain with a two piece in daisy-yellow. 

When Betty emerges, the other members of the shoot team are gathered around the laptop that’s set up on a foldable plastic table, and both the hair and makeup women rush to adjust her appearance as though removing one bathing suit is enough to have eradicated all of their hard work.

They finish and she heads back to where she’d been standing. 

“Kneel down,” she’s told, “And look towards the ground by your knees. Lift your hips. Pull your stomach in.”

Betty obeys and holds her position as she listens to the click of the camera’s shutter.

“We can airbrush the thighs,” the photographer says to someone as though she isn’t there. 

Betty glances at her legs in a manner she hopes is inconspicuous. They’ve never been skinny,  _ she’s _ never been  _ skinny _ , but nobody has ever mentioned them needing the airbrush before. 

She remains quiet and tries to swallow the burning in her throat when the photographer holds his camera back up in front of his face and commands,

“Again.” 

  
  
  
  
  


She sleeps the entire plane ride back to New York. She hadn’t been wearing sunscreen at the beach and her shoulders feel a little sore when she wakes as the captain announces the weather conditions as though nobody on the plane can see from their window that it’s raining. 

Her cab ride back to Battery Park City is relatively quick, and Betty tips the driver as he hands her the little suitcase from his trunk. She greets the concierge with a wave and as much of a smile as she can muster, grateful that he’s talking to another resident as she passes through the lobby. 

At her apartment there is no sign of Chic and she checks her phone to see whether she might’ve missed a message. There isn’t one, but there’s an email from an address she doesn’t immediately recognise.

She tidies away the dirty glasses and the mug full of coffee she’d made for her boyfriend the previous day, stacking them neatly in the dishwasher and setting it to start despite the fact that it’s far from full. 

After she’s pulled her suitcase into the bedroom, she sets the bath to run, squeezing a healthy dose of the scented oil under the falling water. Betty’s a firm believer in unpacking as soon as she returns from a trip: if she leaves it, she finds it’s a struggle the following day to remove everything from her case, and so as the tub fills up, she throws the necessary items into the laundry bin in the closet and sets everything else back in its rightful place.

She peels off her jeans and shirt, leaving them in a puddle of fabrics on the tiled bathroom floor as she steps into the warm water. The bath is her favourite thing about this apartment, and she knows how lucky she is - being able to afford the rent on somewhere in the city with enough square footage that she doesn’t feel claustrophobic. 

She picks up her phone and sends a message to Chic, assuming he’s gone to Darla’s  _ thing, _ but she figures she should find out for certain. After that, she opens her emails to see whether anything new has come through. Tomorrow is supposed to be a day off - lord knows she could use it - but she’s not naive enough to know there’s an expiration date on this job of hers, and she should get as much work as she can  _ while _ she can. 

The email turns out not to be an offer of work, but the photographic receipts of what she’s already done. It’s from Jughead and contains not the shoot she’d done for the magazine, but the pictures he’d taken of her looking out of the warehouse window.

_ Thank you for letting me take these,  _ it reads.  _ That sunset doesn’t look like the New York one - I hope you’re having a good trip. _

At the end, he’s signed off, simply, with his name:  _ Jughead Jones.  _

Attached are fourteen photos of her, each one very similar to the last. After she’s seen the fourth one, she stops scrolling down and looks at the first one again for a moment. The difference between the shoot in Cabo and the one in Brooklyn was so vast that it’s almost funny. She hopes Jughead makes it: it’d be nice, she decides, to work with him again someday.

She thanks him in reply and tells him as such, and just as she’s about to set her phone down, a message from Chic appears on her screen.

_ At Darla’s, _ it reads.  _ Come over. _

Betty declines, citing her tiredness and desire to have an early night, then locks her screen and sinks under the water with her eyes closed. The oil and water sting her wrists faintly, and she presses them inward against her thighs. 

  
  
  
  
  


Betty wakes, for the first time in as long as she can remember, without an alarm. Chic’s side of the bed is unslept in, and Betty lifts her head, listening for the sound of video games or other voices, but the apartment is quiet and still. 

She picks up her phone from the nightstand and checks to see if there are any messages, finding one saying simply,

_ Don’t wait up _

Figuring she should get in an intense workout at the gym in the basement of the building, she peels back the sheets and heads into the bathroom for her usual morning routine. She washes her face first and then pulls her hair back into a ponytail ready for her workout. Next, she opens the mirrored cabinet to take both her birth control pill and the Prozac, but pauses when her hand reaches the bottle of little green and white capsules. In her head, she can hear the photographer’s words from yesterday,

“We can airbrush the thighs.”

They stay on repeat until she pulls her nails in towards her palms. The sharp sting of pain cuts through his voice until it fades away, and Betty breathes out until there is no air left in her lungs. 

The bottle remains where it is, unopened.

The anxiety will dull the hunger, she tells herself, and she can start taking the medication again after London Fashion Week. Or maybe after Milan.

In the basement gym, she works out for close to an hour and a half, heads back up to the apartment to shower, then changes into her favourite jeans and sweater so she can head to the little grocery store on the corner of the block for almond milk and something she can put in the blender to make a smoothie. 

The air outside is colder than she’d been expecting, and she regrets not opting for a coat to keep warm on the five minute journey. Betty buys the almond milk and some spinach and strawberries, then makes her way back to the apartment, hunger gnawing at her stomach the whole time. 

She feels better after drinking the smoothie, and slides the balcony door open, bringing with her the chunky blanket Polly had sent as a Christmas gift last year. Sinking into the chair, she wraps the material around herself and watches the city below for a while. It’s always something she’s found somewhat therapeutic: witnessing the hustle and bustle below while she’s quiet and still. 

It’s interrupted, around ten minutes later, by Chic, half-crashing through the apartment door. Betty rises from where she’s been enjoying the view of the traffic rushing by and leaves the blanket in a pool on the chair.

“Hey,” she greets as her boyfriend lifts his head, his pupils strikingly dilated. 

“I missed you,” he tells her, leaning clumsily to kiss her lips. He tastes like stale alcohol - smells like it too - and Betty pulls away. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, all the while knowing exactly what he’s taken. Cocaine always makes him act like this and although he doesn’t do it all that often, it still makes her incredibly nervous. He’s quite obviously still in his high stage, but she knows it’ll only be a half hour or so before the chills and aching begin. 

Chic doesn’t answer, and she tries a different question. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Don’t need it babe,” he replies. “But I’d be happy to go to bed. Come to bed.”

His words are fast and all tumbling into each other. She shakes her head and steps back.

“I’m heading out soon.”

“Where?”

Uh…” she pauses. “For a run.”

His eyes narrow. “There’s a gym in the building. Why are you going out?”

Betty presses her nails against her palms at the fact he’s chosen now to become coherent. “Thought a change of scenery might be nice.”

She doesn’t really know why she’s lying, just knows that she doesn’t want to stay here with him.

“Whatever,” Chic replies, and heads to switch on the Playstation. 

She waits a moment and then heads to the balcony to retrieve the blanket before changing into running leggings and a sports bra. She throws a sweatshirt on over the top plus a hat to shield her face - occasionally, she’ll be snapped by the press - and then ties the laces of her running shoes for the second time that morning. 

When she comes out of the bedroom, she can see the flu-like symptoms of her boyfriend’s comedown starting to take hold, and she grabs her phone, telling him she’ll catch him later.

He doesn’t reply. 

  
  
  
  
  


As she’s slowing down for a rest, the lyrics of Jake Bugg’s  _ Lightning Bolt _ are interrupted by the sound of an email notification. At the corner of West Thames Park, Betty slows her jog even further to a walk, her mouth dry without the water from the bottle she’s accidentally left behind. 

She realises at that point that she hadn’t needed to actually  _ go _ for a run: leaving the apartment would have been enough to carry out her story, but at least she’s gotten in extra prep for the upcoming shows. 

As her breathing slows, she pulls her phone out from the tiny pouch-pocket of her leggings and checks the sender. It’s from Jughead and she opens it curiously.

_ If you really mean that, _ it says, _ I’d be honoured.   _

Betty realises the reply is in reference to her having said it would be nice to work with him again someday. His email also tells her she can message him via Instagram if she ever wants to, or she could use his cell number which he also includes in his reply. 

There’s an additional line at the end, and she finds herself smiling as she reads it.

_ Places like Chambers Street could use your glamour. _

It has all the markings of a relatively new photographer: the old hats are nowhere near this nice, nor would they have sent her all of those pictures - whether or not she wanted them. She slips her phone back into the pouch, takes a couple of deep breaths and then quickens her pace again. Rather than run all the way up West Street, she decides to cut along Liberty Street so she can enjoy the view of the marina. 

The sun is beginning to emerge from the clouds and although its warmth is minimal, it feels good on Betty’s face. She reaches a row of unoccupied benches facing out towards the Hudson and pauses again to sit.  _ Lightning Bolt  _ gives way to _ Mama Said Knock You Out _ and she changes her playlist from the workout one to something a little more appropriate for watching the boats floating on the water.  

_ Airbrush the thighs, _ she hears again during the pause.  _ Airbrush the thighs, airbrush the thighs. _ But then, a rogue collection of words - in Jughead Jones’ voice, no less -  _ I’d be honoured.   _

She looks at his email again - at the final line - and wonders whether he’s at Chambers Street now, or whether he’s generalising. The subway station he’s referring to is dirty and dark, but no more than six blocks away from where she’s sitting and she figures it might be rather interesting to watch him find beauty in somewhere which is, to most people, rather ugly. 

She figures she can either stay here, head back to the apartment, or call Jughead on the off chance he  _ is  _ at Chambers Street and wouldn’t mind having someone watch his work. Before she can decide not to, Betty opts for the latter.

He picks up on the fifth ring. “Hello?”

“Jughead?” she asks. 

“Speaking.”

“Hi,” she pauses. “It’s Betty… uh Cooper. You photograph-”

“- Betty!” he cuts in, surprise evident in his tone. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s… fine,” she tells him. “I just got your email. Are you at Chambers Street now?”

In the background, she can hear the rattling of a train and figures that yes, he is. Or at least he’s  _ somewhere _ relating to the subway. “I am,” he shouts over the noise. “Hang on.”

There’s a pause, during which she assumes he must be moving somewhere a little quieter. “Sorry, I was struggling to hear you. I’m at Chambers Street, yes.”

“I was wondering,” she starts, unable to determine whether or not the feeling in her stomach is from hunger or, perhaps strangely, nerves. “I’m at the harbour and, if you wouldn’t mind some company...”

There’s another very audible pause before Jughead asks, “You want to watch me work?”

“I… I found it interesting -  _ find _ it interesting,” Betty corrects herself. “I get it if you don’t want me hanging around, or -”

“- Of course you can come.”

“You sure?”

“Seriously, not many people are interested in hanging around a dingy subway station let alone people like you,” he levels, “So yes - come.”

She gets stuck on the words  _ people like you, _ and wants to ask him what he means. She doesn’t, and instead lets him know she’ll be there in five minutes.

“Five?” he clarifies, clearly disbelieving.

“I’m wearing running shoes.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “I’ll be the weirdo with the camera at the bottom of the steps for the downtown line.”

She finds herself smiling, and ends the call by saying she’ll see him soon. 

  
  
  
  
  


True to his word, Jughead  _ is _ the guy with the camera at the bottom of the steps, and he’s very obviously looking out for her because she sees him break into something of a shy smile, which he then hides by ducking his face into the collar of his sherpa jacket. He’s wearing a grey beanie which is knit into a crown shape, and there’s a dark wave of hair flopping forwards over his forehead. 

Betty raises her hand in a wave as she descends the steps and he nods at her, lips quirking in what she thinks might be amusement.

“You’re fast,” he says, appraising her outfit when she reaches him. His eyes widen as he must realise what he’s done, and a blush spreads across his face.

“I used to run track in high school.”

It’s a little awkward, and she repositions the hat on her head. 

“I’m uh… working on a new collection of photos,” Jughead tells her. “The city’s most run down stations.”

“Sounds great.”

He pulls a disbelieving face and she can’t help but laugh, which in turn makes him smile. 

“Quite the contrast after taking pictures of you, I know.”

They walk along the platform towards the end, and Betty says nothing in response.

“What did you think?” he asks. “About the pictures I mean.”

“I think,” she pauses for a few seconds, her voice very quiet when she continues. “I think you made me look beautiful.”

“Betty, you -” he begins, but stops himself before he can finish. He raises his camera and points it at something in the distance she either can’t see or hasn’t noticed. Briefly, she wonders what he’d been about to say, but she doesn’t ask.

Watching him work is interesting: he explains what he’s looking at through his lens and then hands her his camera so she can see for herself. He photographs the graffitied tiles and the peeling paint of the struts and the broken light that’s flickering above her head. 

As he’s bringing his camera back down, she shivers in the cold, the heat from her run having worn off. Without a second thought, Jughead shrugs off his jacket and holds it out for her.

“You’re cold,” he says in response to her unasked question of  _ why? _ “And I run hot anyway.”

She slips her arms into the fleece and is immediately engulfed by the scent of pine soap and a faint lingering of cigarette smoke. There’s no doubt that the jacket swamps her frame, but it feels strangely comforting.

“Thanks,” she says gratefully. 

He shrugs like it’s nothing. “You’re welcome.”

Jughead takes more pictures at the other end of the station, explaining about the way he can capture the gritty nature of the place even more from this position. All the while, Betty listens to the passion in the way he speaks and tries to remember a time she’s ever felt like that about her own work.

There have been so many things that had seemed exciting - or that should have been exciting - but she’s not sure she’s ever been _ passionate _ about modelling clothes. One minute she was writing articles for the school newspaper; the next she was being handed a card at the mall and being told to make the trip to Cincinnati. She tries not to remember how much prouder her mom had seemed at her booking the Calvin Klein campaign than when she’d been named Valedictorian. 

“So,” Jughead says, capping the camera lens. “I’m pretty hungry. I was going to head for food if you want to join me?”

She hesitates - not at joining him, but at the mention of food. Lunch needs to be a plain salad or soup, or, if she’s not going to eat dinner, she supposes she could stretch to some grains. 

“Sorry,” he apologises, tugging on his beanie. “That was presumptuous. I’m sure you’re busy and -”

“- Lunch sounds good,” Betty cuts in to tell him. “But it’s fashion week in London next week and I need to be careful.”

“Careful?”

“About what I eat.”

“Oh,” Jughead frowns in response, then opens his mouth to say something which he must decide against. His lips close, and then reopen for him to say, “How about you pick where we go? My body could probably use something healthy for once anyway.”  

They ride the subway one stop to Canal Street where Betty leads them to Dimes - a little cafe-style restaurant serving health-conscious food that she often frequents on her days in lower Manhattan.

Still wearing Jughead’s sherpa, she enters first, her voice quiet when she says, “You like vegetables right?”

His expression is pensive and makes her smile yet again. 

They’re handed menus, though Betty already knows what she’ll order, and she watches his brows crease into a frown. 

“Where are all the carbs?”

“In hell,” she says, “With the rest of the sinners.”

This earns her an actual chuckle - one that crinkles Jughead’s eyes and wrinkles his nose. It makes her smile too.

She orders her spring vegetable soup and he orders chicken with a side of cornbread and they sip water until the food arrives. 

“Just so you know,” he says later, with a mouth full of cornbread. “That picture of you on my Instagram got more likes than all of the others put together.”

He takes a bite of chicken and she feels something of a sting; perhaps his desire to work with her again comes simply from an exposure perspective. Though, she supposes, that’s the only reason they’re all here: using each other for exposure. A cycle so-to-speak.

“We could always do another shoot,” she tells him as casually as she can. He does, after all, deserve more recognition. The fashion world could use some nicer photographers. 

His fork pauses mid-air. “Really? You’d be up for that?”

“I mean, if you wanted to?”

“I… yeah,” he replies, tugging on his beanie again. “Yeah that’d… that’d be great.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for your wonderful support for this fic. I feel very honoured to have received the comments and kudos that I have x

_ It will take a while to make you smile _ _   
_ _ Somewhere in these eyes  _

_ I'm on your side _

 

Jughead stares at the message on his phone, thinking about how he can best respond without looking like a, an idiot, or b, an opportunist waiting to pounce. He supposes he is, in a way: he would’ve photographed Betty in whatever she’d shown up dressed in, but here she is, giving him the choice.

_ Is there anything specific you’d like me to wear?  _ She’s asked, and in all honesty, what he’d really like to type back is,

_ The dress you’re wearing on page 37 of US Weekly.  _

It’s dark green - darker even than phthalocyanine - and it makes her pale skin stand out perfectly. The picture had been taken during her trip to London for the fashion week and judging by the background, he guesses she’d been at a party. After England’s capital, she’d flown next to Milan for the events taking place there, and as much as he’s ashamed at himself, he’s been using a combination of social media and glossy magazines so he can picture in his mind as accurately as possible, how the shot might look. 

What Jughead types back instead is,

_ If you have an evening gown you don’t mind putting on, that would be great.  _

He doesn’t expect her to message back straight away, but she does:

_ Do you have a colour in mind? _

He’ll be shooting again in black and white, so he tells her anything dark or bright is perfect, and resumes his editing of the latest picture in his stations collection. It’s not on the same level of surprising grittiness perhaps as Chambers, but 191st Street has a similar unloved aesthetic. He figures that people don’t refer to it as the  _ tunnel of doom _ for nothing. 

He’s due to met Betty tomorrow at 116th Street, but he’s starting to wonder if maybe he should meet her at one of the less dingy stations closer to Battery Park City which, he’s learned from Star Magazine, is where she has an apartment. Jughead is aware that these magazines don’t always (or even often) publish factually-correct articles, but he assumes this detail to be true: it  _ does _ seem somewhere someone like Betty would live. 

He’s read that she shares the place ( _ ‘13,000 square feet of luxury with views of the Hudson,’ _ apparently) with her model boyfriend Charles ‘Chic’ Smith, a tall, angular blonde with cheekbones like razors and incredibly penetrating eyes. They’re not, he’s determined from the magazines’ pictures, the same kind of penetrating as Betty’s. They’re harsher - colder - and he can see exactly why he’s been walking for some rather big names in the fashion world. 

As is always the case with such publications, Jughead has found there to be some rather unsavoury stories about the people featured in the pictures. Several of the stories happen to be about Betty and Chic, and he’s purposely avoided reading them out of both respect for her, and out of protest towards the existence of such hollow journalism. One headline had been something about drugs; another along the lines of ‘trouble in paradise?’ which he’d scoffed at and immediately closed the page. He’d had - and still  _ has _ \- zero desire to read anything about the subject. 

He just hopes neither headline is true.

  
  
  
  
  


The following day, after consuming close to an entire box of own-brand fruity pebbles cereal (entitled, unadventurously, Fruit Rocks) Jughead sets out to meet Betty at Fulton Street, having discovered via their exchange of messages that contrary to his belief, she is not driven to each job. He’s mildly concerned about this for two reasons: the first being that he is well-versed in the New York City subway system and its eclectic mix of characters; the second being that she is a model who’s been recently featured in the gossip magazines and he doesn’t really want to draw attention to the shoot. 

The weather, for its part, seems to be holding out. There had been some earlier drizzle but although the clouds are still lingering, the ground has dried up. He doesn’t need full sun, but it would be better if the sky were light enough that he won’t have to do too much editing via his laptop. 

Heading to Manhattan via this route certainly isn’t the quickest, but at least he’s only armed with his camera (and, by extension, his backpack) so the fact that he has to stand for the first leg of the journey isn’t too bad. 

Betty isn’t there when he reaches Fulton Street, and Jughead spends a mildly disconcerting amount of time internally panicking that this is all a set-up because really, how did he expect this beautiful model to do him this huge favour for nothing?

The sight of her heading towards him from the escalator halts his internal monologue, and he walks to meet her, taking in the thick padded coat she’s wearing. There’s a creeping thought about her not needing his sherpa today that catches him off guard, but she’s smiling (albeit somewhat stiffly) and he forgets about the fact that his jacket had smelled a little of perfume for a number of days after their last meeting. 

“Hi,” he says as she steps off of the escalator. “Can I take that for you?” He nods at the lilac bag she’s holding which obviously contains her dress. It’s not like it’ll be heavy, but she’s already doing him a huge favour so he figures the least he can do is carry her things. 

“It’s fine; I’ve got it,” Betty replies, and again, her tight smile reappears. 

They catch the 4 uptown, finding seats in a carriage near the back of the train. 

“Did you enjoy London?” Jughead asks her quietly, careful not to draw unnecessary attention her way. 

She’s a little paler than he’d remembered, and her face seems thinner too. Maybe, he decides, he’s just remembered her wrong. 

“Those events are tiring,” she says, and doesn’t elaborate. 

“Did you get to explore much of the city?”

“Not really,” Betty tells him. “We only walk for around twenty minutes but the rest of the time is spent getting ready or doing prep or attending parties. There isn’t much time to explore.”

He’d like to know what she means by  _ prep,  _ but doesn’t want to make his ignorance regarding the topic so blindingly obvious. 

“That’s a shame,” he says instead. “I’ve always wanted to go to England.”

It’s quiet for a moment before Betty answers, “It rains a lot.”

“So I’ve heard.”

There’s another, much longer, pause, during which he contemplates asking her again if she’s okay. In the end, he decides against it and just mentally counts down the stations until they arrive at 116 st, wondering how the atmosphere between them is so different to the last time when they’d eaten lunch together at Dimes. 

Finally, the train rattles to a stop and they exit the carriage. There are a few people looking in their direction, much like there have been on and off throughout the journey, but nobody says anything and they head through the barriers without issue. 

The street, as it always is, turns out to be loud and busy. A car roars past playing reggaeton music so loud that Jughead can feel it throughout his entire body, and he has to lean close to Betty so she’ll hear him when he says,

“It’s not far from here; just a few minutes’ walk.” 

He knows she’ll need to change, and there’s a slightly more upscale cafe a couple streets away with a bathroom he has more faith in to be clean. He’ll have to buy something to eat of course, but the Fruit Rocks haven’t done their supposed job of keeping his hunger at bay and he could definitely go for some huevos rancheros.

“I should change,” Betty tells him, nodding towards a tiny bodega sandwiched between a lavanderia and a hardware store. 

“I thought you might want to do that somewhere a little…” he pauses in search of the right word. “Upmarket.”

“I’ve changed in worse places than a bodega bathroom,” she replies. “That endless glamour everything thinks is modelling, it’s all an illusion,” 

The words leave her mouth in such a strange tone that there’s a twisting feeling in his stomach and for the second time that day, Jughead wants to ask what she means.

For the second time, he doesn’t.

“Hi there,” Betty greets the young woman behind the counter. She’s inspecting her nails and barely looks up. “Do you have a bathroom I could use?”

She gestures with her hand in the direction of the back of the store and then, finally glances at Betty, her eyes widening when she realises who she is.

“¡Joder! ¿eres Betty Cooper?”

Jughead notes the way she ducks her head, embarrassed at the fawning that ensues in a mix of Spanish and English. He understands only some of what the woman says - words like  _ beautiful _ and  _ I can’t believe it _ \- and gives up when she escalates into hundred-mile-an-hour Spanish.

The fawning does result though, in her personally escorting Betty to the staff bathroom, where she apologises that it’s so tiny, and instructs her to take all the time she needs. Jughead uses it as an opportunity to browse the selection of food items on offer, none of which are particularly healthy. He selects a bag of plantain chips, and then debates for a while over how many sleeves of Oreos he should get. He’s almost 99% certain that Betty won’t want any, but on the off-chance that she does, he doesn’t want to be limited to only one mini sleeve for himself. Eventually, he decides on four: if Betty doesn’t want any then he can stash the spares in his backpack for later. 

The woman from behind the counter is still lingering near the back of the store, and Jughead is forced to ask her to ring the items up. 

“For Betty Cooper?” she questions, “All free.”

“No,” Jughead protests. “I want to pay - how much?” 

She shakes her head and there’s a strange sort of stand-off. He’s not accustomed to receiving handouts, and finds it especially difficult that he might be in receipt of them simply because of Betty, so leaves a twenty on the counter, figuring that’ll more than cover the cost.

Besides, he’d have spent more in the other place anyway.

Around five minutes later, as he’s opening the bag of chips having gotten a little bored at looking at the bodega’s surprisingly vast selection of Nair products, the bathroom door opens and Betty emerges, an absolute vision in red. 

He doesn’t often find himself speechless, but he is, currently, exactly that.

“Ay mami! You look so beautiful!” the other woman says.

Betty smooths down the dress with a polite smile, the silk material clinging to her hip bones as she does so. Jughead tries not to look like he’s staring, but he  _ is _ staring. She’s pulled her hair loose from the elastic it’d been in and now it’s skirting her shoulders in waves. 

“Thank you,” Betty says. “For letting me use the bathroom.”

“You’re welcome. Before you go, you think I could get a picture?”

“Sure,” she agrees, and goes to stand beside the woman so she can take a selfie on her bejewelled phone. 

Once she’s done, Betty pulls her coat back on over her dress and they leave. 

“I promise it’s not far,” he tells her, suddenly feeling somewhat protective over the woman walking beside him in her long, flowy dress and her almost-comical black puffy coat. 

They get a few looks, unsurprisingly, but nobody stops them and of course, there are no paparazzi loitering in East Harlem. They head along the street for a minute more, then reach the location Jughead has been excited to photograph her at ever since she’d agreed to do this. Betty stops walking when he does, and then looks up pointedly at the fire escape ladder he’s pulling down.

“You didn’t tell me we were climbing up someone’s fire escape.”

He scratches at the back of his neck. “Yeah… maybe I should’ve said.”

She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”

They climb until they’re on the fifth floor - a little more than halfway up the building - and the walls are covered in graffiti. She is, by far, the most beautiful thing around. 

“You see that building over there?” Jughead asks. “The red one? That’s where I’ll be.”

Betty’s eyes fix on the rooftop across the street. Her lips purse together and he can see her chewing the bottom one thoughtfully. Just as he’s about to ask her if she’s okay with that, she says,

“There are no railings.”

That, he hadn’t been expecting.

“No - but I’ll be careful. Promise.” He means it to be a joke but she doesn’t laugh, and simply stares at the opposite rooftop. 

“What about my coat?” she asks, changing the subject. “You won’t want it in the shot.”

“I can look after it. I’ll bring it back over when I’ve finished. If I call you and you keep your phone on speaker just behind where your dress reaches the floor, I can talk about positions.”

Betty nods her agreement and there’s a minute where he just looks at her, taking in the angles of her face and the soft blonde waves of her hair. There’s such a gentleness about her, he thinks, that he hadn’t been expecting before their first meeting. 

“Jughead?” she questions.

“Yeah?”

“I asked if you were ready to start.”

“Oh.” He gives himself a mental shake. “Uh yes. Yes, of course.”

She removes her coat, pulling the poppers from their holes and then sliding the zipper down until it reveals the red dress in all its glory. Jughead notes something of a disguised wince though when she pulls each arm free from the sleeves. His eyes immediately fix on her wrists where he’d seen the marks last time. They’re there again, only angrier today.

He wonders how he didn’t see them back in the bodega.

(He wonders how he’s supposed to continue now that he has)

“My coat,” Betty says pointedly, flipping her arm over so he can no longer see. It’s obvious he’s been caught staring, and something burns high in Jughead’s throat. Maybe it’s the words he’s supposed to say to her, whatever they are, but they won’t form. 

All he can taste is bile.

“Betty….”

“- It’s cold,” she says abruptly. “Let’s start.”

He swallows his sigh and takes her coat, draping it over her forearm so it won’t trail on the floor as he’s climbing back down the fire escape. 

“I’ll call as soon as I’m set up,” he tells her, taking one last glance at her arms - which are now wrapped around her body. 

“You don’t have to rush.” She looks almost apologetic - like she realises she must’ve been a little sharp. “I’m used to waiting around.”

That’s fine, he thinks, but there are goosebumps on her skin and marks on her arms and palms and a look in her eyes that wasn’t there last time. He  _ needs _ to rush; needs to do or say something to make sure she’s okay. 

“The woman in the bodega was right by the way,” he decides to tell her. “You  _ do _ look beautiful.”

Jughead sees her swallow; watches her blink a few times as her fingers flex. Her voice is tiny when she says, quietly, “Thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Okay, if you could fold your arms and lean on the railings,” Jughead tells her. “Turn your head a little to the left so it’s facing the wind.”

Through his camera lens, he watches as Betty follows his instructions, lifting her head at the cool breeze. 

“And look down towards the intersection…. Perfect.” He snaps away, pausing to adjust the focus - sending the background into a blur of dark colours interrupted by the spill of her red dress. 

“Okay that’s great Betty. Do you think we could do one more?”

“Sure,” she replies, though her tone is flat and unconvincing. Selfishly, he asks her to climb onto the second rung of the ladder anyway. 

“That’s a great position,” he says over speakerphone. “Now if you could look up as though you’re making eye contact with someone on the next floor.”

She does it of course - perfectly too, with the breeze catching a few strands of hair so her left shoulder is bared. 

“Okay that’s it - I’m sorry to keep you out here,” he says, but she surprises him, staying where she is but turning her head so she’s looking directly across to where he’s standing on an opposite rooftop. 

“You don’t have to apologise to me - I do what you say.”

He’s not sure how to respond: he can see her through his lens still and there’s something almost haunting about her. A gust of wind catches the material of her dress, sending it up in a cloud of red, and he presses the shutter release, holding it until she moves.

He swallows. “I’ll bring your coat right over.”

Betty meets him at the bottom having climbed down while he was doing the same. She’s shivering now, the hairs on her arms raised in protest at the cold, and he catches the scent of her perfume when he drapes her coat around her shoulders.     

“Thank you,” he says gratefully. “The shots are…. You looked stunning.”

Betty’s eyelids lift and he notes the small twitch of her lips. It’s not quite a smile, but he’s going to take it. “I can show you if you like?” he continues. “But uh…. inside. You’ll catch a cold if we stay out here.”

“Okay,” she agrees. 

“Do you want to change first? Make sure you’re warm?”

“We should probably avoid that bodega bathroom,” Betty says. 

A small smile creeps across Jughead’s face without him being able to stop it. “I have somewhere in mind. And FYI Betty Cooper, you took me to no-carbs hell last time; Today I’m taking you to coffee heaven.”

She doesn’t look thrilled, but doesn’t put up any sort of protest either, so when her eyes look slightly less sad, he decides to count it as a win.   

  
  
  
  
  


They duck into a tiny cafe just as the heavy clouds spill over with rain. Jughead nudges Betty in the direction of the bathroom in the back to change while he orders their coffee. He decides not to ask whether she wants anything specific - based on the assumption that she’ll order something low-fat, low-calorie (and, therefore, low-taste) Instead, he asks for two americanos and opts against adding a second slice of tres leches cake to the order. 

If it transpires that she  _ would  _ actually like some, he can easily order another piece. (Or, he supposes, he could share his)

She returns from the bathroom under five minutes after he’s seated at a table away from the window and towards the back of the place. Her pastel sweater is a little large on the shoulders, but the sleeves stop at her knuckles and as much as Jughead knows little about fashion, he considers this might be a purposeful choice. He wants so badly to ask how she got the marks on her palms and the ones on her wrists too, but again, no words seem willing to organise themselves into a sensitive question. 

“Better?” he asks as she takes a seat.

Her eyes lift - pupils contracted to tiny dots of black in a sea of stormy green. “I’m warmer,” she replies, cupping her fingers around the steaming mug. “Thank you.”

They sip simultaneously, the liquid hot enough to burn Jughead’s throat a little - pretty much how he likes it best.

“This place has the best coffee and cake in the area,” he says, indicating the generous slice of tres leches. “And this kind is the best of the best.”

A tight smile crosses Betty’s lips. “I’m not really hungry,” she says. “But the coffee’s good.”

They’re almost a quarter of their way through the americanos when two young girls, both urging each other to speak first, approach the table.

“Betty Cooper?” one of them finally asks in an awed whisper. “Can we get a picture?”

She’s clutching a phone hopefully, and Jughead swallows his mouthful of coffee a little uneasily as Betty sets down her mug. 

“Sure.”

The girl looks hopefully at Jughead and it takes a moment for him to realise that she wants him to take the picture. “Do you mind?”

He looks to Betty who simply lifts a corner of her mouth in resigned acceptance and he takes the phone, hitting the camera button on the home screen. 

“3, 2, 1,” he counts down before taking the photo and handing back the phone. 

He watches the girls thank her and head out excitedly before turning his attention back to the woman opposite. “Does that happen a lot?”

She lifts her mug to her lips and says, just before she tilts it, “Pretty much.”

“Guess that’s the downside of being a famous supermodel,” he jokes.

“Not supermodel.”

“What?”

“I’m not a supermodel.”

“I thought -”

“- I’m what the industry calls a  _ model-of-the moment. _ ” 

Jughead frowns. “What does  _ that _ mean?”

“It means that I have an expiration date.”

He can’t work out if the casualness in her voice is for show. 

“So,” she adds with a shrug, taking another mouthful of coffee - this time a gulp. “If you want to photograph me again, you should get it done while I’m still relevant. Otherwise it could damage your prospects.”

Nervously, Jughead tugs on his beanie but it won’t pull down any further. He rubs at the back of his neck instead. “I’m not… I hope you don’t think I asked you do this because you’re  _ relevant. _ ” 

Again, Betty’s shoulder rise and he’s struck by how much he wants to place his hands on them; squeeze gently until they settle back down where they’re supposed to be. “It’s okay Jughead - I get it.”

_ But you don’t,  _ he wants to say.  _ You don’t get it at all. _ What he tells her instead, is, “I could photograph you in every colour in every setting -  _ of-the-moment _ or not.”

Her coffee mug pauses on its way back down to the table. “You  _ could? _ ”

“I  _ want to, _ I mean.”

“Why?”

_ Because you’re beautiful. _ “Because you’re probably the only person I’ve ever enjoyed photographing. Because the way you work seems effortless, even though I know it isn’t. Because -”

“- Okay,” she cuts in quietly.

“Okay what?”

“You can stop talking.”

“I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to say all of those things out loud, just you asked and….”he pauses and takes a breath. “I’m sorry.”

After plucking up the courage, Jughead lifts his gaze to hers and finds something’s different in her eyes. It’s a fractional change - almost imperceptible - but it’s there. “You’re the only photographer I’ve met who apologises. You do it a lot.”

“Oh.” His fingers reach yet again for the comforting material of his beanie when he wants to say sorry again and realises he can’t. 

“You were being nice; you should only apologise for what you said if you didn’t mean it.”

“I mean it,” he’s quick to say. “You just seemed.... Uncomfortable.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” Betty replies.

“You weren’t expecting a photographer to be  _ nice? _ ”

“A photographer,” she utters quietly. “You in general.”

“Do I give off some kind of dark, don’t-talk-to-me vibe?” he asks, and then thinks about his words. With a wry grin he adds, “Maybe don’t answer that."

“Most people appear to be nice. I guess, maybe I wasn’t expecting you to mean it.”

“That’s…” he takes a gulp of coffee which drains his mug. “Depressingly honest.”

“Sorry.”

This time, it’s his turn to shrug. “Don’t be. Why do you think I prefer taking pictures of scenery? I wasn’t really expecting  _ you  _ to be nice either.”

For the first time that day, she smiles a real smile. It crinkles the skin at her eyes and bares her teeth, and a small burst of laughter escape her lips too. Jughead finds himself matching her. 

It disappears quicker than he’d like though, and he catches her eyeing what’s left of the cake on his plate. “You want this last bit? I’m struggling to finish it.”

It’s a downright lie - he could easily polish off the moist sponge with room to spare - and considering he’s just discovered that she must be surrounded by people who aren’t particularly honest, the words have a somewhat spiky edge to them as they leave his mouth.

“I was being truthful when I said I wasn’t hungry,” Betty replies. 

Jughead nods and spears the piece with his fork. “Okay.”

Part way through his mouthful, he realises Betty’s coffee mug is empty too. “Can I get you another?” he asks.

She opens her mouth, Jughead expects, in readiness to answer, but then closes it again. He watches her fingers curl in towards her palms and remain there until her knuckles are white. Her eyes aren’t focused on him, but on somewhere far away, as though her gaze isn’t really fixed on anything. 

Gently, so as not to make her jump, he places a hand on the top of her wrist as he says her name. “Betty?”

It takes a moment, but her eyes register his touch first, and so he removes his hand, drawing it back to where it had been resting on the table. He swallows as her fingers slowly unclench.

There’s blood under her fingernails.

“I should go,” she blurts, and exits the cafe before he’s even processed what just happened. 

“Shit!” he mutters, and makes to head after her. 

When he stands, he sees the bag containing her dress and quickly grabs it, heading in the direction of the subway. The street is busy, but not busy enough that he shouldn’t be able to spot her. He knows he can’t call her name and so he frantically scans the sidewalks for a blonde head of hair and a long black coat.

He finds neither. 

He heads to the subway station anyway in a sort-of semi-jog that leaves him breathless and making the decision that he should probably start taking Archie up on his offers that they go for a run together.

At the platform, there’s no sign of Betty either. Jughead misses the first train that arrives, and then the second and the third until he resigns himself to taking a seat on the next one with the plan to call her. 

Unsurprisingly, it heads straight to voicemail.

The train rattles along the line and he types out a message while trying to recall what might’ve resulted in the current situation. He’d asked if she’d wanted coffee - that was it. 

The camera in his hand feels heavier than usual and he puts it back in the backpack, keeping the lilac bag containing Betty’s dress secured between his feet. 

He doesn’t really expect her to return the message, but still feels disappointed when he doesn’t hear the soft hum of a vibration by the time he’s switched trains and headed to Archie and Veronica’s apartment in Chelsea. Despite the fact that he’s never made one in his adult life, Jughead decides to stage it as an I-just-dropped-by-to-see-my-best-friend visit, rather than explaining that he’s there in case the model he’s just photographed decides to call him and either let him know she’s okay, or that she wants her dress back. 

  
  
  
  
  


Because he’s Jughead Jones, Archie is not there - Veronica is.

She waves away his comment that he can drop by another time with, “Nonsense Jughead. You’re just as much my friend as you are Archie’s.”

This is decidedly untrue, not least because he and Archie grew up together in Riverdale whereas Veronica is someone they both met at a college party - and the only reason she still speaks to him is because she’s the one girl Archie didn’t forget to call back. 

(Or, maybe he did, but she was just more persistent than the others. It does, he thinks, seem likely)

“What’s in the bag?”

He supposes there’s no point lying - when he inevitably goes to the bathroom, he knows she’ll peek inside anyway. “A dress.”

“Why do you have a dress inside such a fancy bag?”

“It’s Betty’s.”

“As in Betty  _ Cooper? _ ”

“We were doing a photoshoot and she left it by mistake. I uh…” he tugs again on his beanie. “Thought I could get it back to her - it might be expensive.”

“Can we talk about the fact that you’re dropping Betty Cooper’s last name because - oh my God, are you guys now friends or something?!”

“We’re…” he pauses, considering his options. He’s not sure  _ what  _ they are, but he strongly suspects it’s not  _ friends.  _

It turns out that he doesn’t need to finish, because Veronica has another question. Or three. “Can I see the dress? Do you have the photos on your camera? Can I see them?”

Somehow, he manages to say no to the latter two, but caves on the first one when she asks him again. 

“Please Jughead, it’s like, my  _ right  _ as a lover of fashion.”

Though not a legitimate excuse, it distracts her long enough that he can check his phone and send another message to Betty:  _ Just let me know you’re okay. _

  
  
  
  
  


She doesn’t respond until nearly midnight, when he’s studying the copy of US Weekly he bought while Betty was in Milan.

Her message says, simply, _ Please don’t tell anyone. _

He looks back at the magazine, his eyes lingering on the phrases  _ drugs binge _ and  _ arguing could be heard from the couple’s hotel room. _ There are pictures of Betty’s boyfriend stumbling out of the after-party of one of the shows with the caption  _ ‘Bad-boy Chic Smith leaving London’s trendy Mahiki nightclub’, _ and he closes the page, unsettled.

Jughead types back his reply with desperate fingers:  _ Of course not - I promise. _

He hits send and then immediately composes another message, getting as far as,  _ If you ever want to talk _ before deleting the words and starting again.

_ I’ll keep your dress safe. _

She doesn’t message back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you begin this chapter, I urge you to check the tags which I’ve updated to reflect the nature of this one. It might not be for you and that’s totally okay - I take no offence. It has been written sensitively and with research and personal experience behind it. If you’re still happy to go ahead, I hope you enjoy. x

_ I can remember being nothing but fearless and young _

_ We've become echoes, but echoes - they fade away _

_ We've fallen to the dark as we dive under the waves _

 

Eventually, the snoring becomes too much. Betty pushes back the sheets and creeps quietly to the bathroom where she runs the water until it’s icy over her fingers. She splashes her face twice, the shock of the cold on her warm skin stealing her breath but, ultimately, leaving her refreshed. 

She takes her birth control pill and then the Prozac, feeling an overwhelming sense of calm as it passes her lips. She knows that part at least is psychological, but she swallows it with a cup of the cool water from her hand. 

As she turns off the flow, the scars on her wrist catch her eye. They’re less sore now; don’t look greenish-yellow when she’s just got out of the shower; don’t catch on the rough material of her favourite lambswool sweater. 

The marks on her palms though… well, they’re a different story. She supposes reflexes like that take longer to bring under control. For now, her wrists are safe and she has to be grateful for progress. Progress which, inevitably, has come at a cost.

She’s been back on the Prozac for a little under four weeks and has almost no need for a belt on her jeans any more. Her  _ habits _ are less prevalent. Eating is not. 

She wishes she was more like Cheryl Blossom - who legitimately seems to detest food and eats it simply for means of survival. She wishes she couldn’t remember how a cheeseburger tastes, or what it’s like to dip tortilla chips into hot queso, or the way her favourite ice cream feels as it melts on her tongue. 

Sometimes, she hates her brain for focusing on cleaning and the lock on the apartment door and reciting sentences she’s heard over and over until they’re ingrained in her brain, when it could’ve chosen food to turn into a  _ habit. _ Instead, she has to actively work to make herself stick to the rules, whereas with the other things, she has to work actively  _ not _ to stick to her mind’s rules about germs and checking three times. 

Really, she’s just tired. 

Chic being on some sort of ‘getting high’ crusade lately doesn’t help either.

The burn on her left palm stings at the memory of him tumbling into her a few days ago while she was taking bran muffins out of the oven, and she applies a layer of Mederma onto the wound before closing the little mirrored cabinet.  

Her boyfriend remains asleep on his side of the bed as she pulls her workout clothes from their drawer and tugs them on, the lycra snapping against her waist and pulling in the soft pouch of stomach that no diet seems to be able to eradicate. 

_ Drink more water Elizabeth, _ her mom has always said. _ It’ll help with the bloating.  _

She pulls her hair into a ponytail, ties the elastic tight enough to pull at her scalp, and focuses on the feel of that rather that the weight of Alice Cooper’s words on her chest. 

When she gets to the gym downstairs, she finds that it’s fairly empty: it’s still early but she has a meeting at the agency in two hours and needs to get in at least six miles on the treadmill before she starts on her abs. At least if people are going to accuse her of not paying attention to all areas of her body during her workouts, she’ll know in her own mind the effort she’s put in.

Chic is still asleep when she returns to the apartment, checking the lock three times before she heads to the shower. Betty envies his ability to be able to roll out of bed, drink a mug of the coffee she’s got going and head to a shoot looking somewhere between casually and purposefully dishevelled. It’s what he’s built his image on: red-rimmed hooded eyelids; angular juts of his cheekbones; a smile that’s so assured that he could command pretty much anything.

All of those things had, of course, turned Betty’s head when they first met at the Calvin Klein campaign. They’d posed together - his hands touching her - her hands touching him in places that, as a just-turned-eighteen-years-old virgin, she was extremely uncomfortable with.

“Hey,” he’d said, drawing the vowel sound with his southern accent. His smile had been genuine, his eyes endless pools of blue when he’d added, “You’re new.”

She still remembers toying with the white crop top she’d been wearing - wishing it would pull down and cover more of her skin as she’d tried to keep her voice level on reply. “Yes.”

“Splay your fingers more,” he’d told her. “We’re selling sex; you should be touching as much of me as you can.”

It had been confusing: she’d thought they were selling underwear. But she did as he’d instructed, his words making her feel both more at ease and more nervous, but when the photographer began snapping again, his comments were less directive and more appreciative, and she’d felt something loosen in her chest. 

  
  
  
  
  


At the agency meeting, Betty talks through the offer from a fairly new Japanese designer-duo, Saitō-Sano They want her as the face of the company.

“But they want pale skin Betty,” she’s told. “They specified that.”

She frowns. “Isn’t that racist?”

Kat, the woman in charge of setting up the go-see, balks at the suggestion. “Absolutely not. They just don’t want you with a tan or freckles. Stay out of the sun now that the weather’s starting to get warmer.” 

Betty nods. 

“And don’t lose those cheekbones. They were almost rivalling Chic’s but...” her hand gestures close to her own face. “They’re disappearing again.”

Betty saves the date and time of the meet in her phone and assumes they’re done, when Kat lifts her index finger in an instructed pause.

“Have you reconsidered your stance on nudity? You’re without a fragrance campaign and we don’t want your brand going stale. This could switch things up and give you another angle to play: good girl gone bad. Corrupted innocence. That sort of thing.”

She blinks and tries to take everything in without appearing as startled as she feels. Nudity has always been something she’s said categorically she’d never do. Her face flames in both embarrassment and concern that if Kat’s bringing this up, her brand is - already - going stale. 

“I uh... “ she starts. “I don’t think -”

“Imagine something like the Guilty campaign that Gucci did. You could be paired with someone darker or someone with more of a reputation. I could pitch that so easily.”

Except, Betty thinks, she doesn’t  _ want  _ to look like she’s been corrupted. “I’ll think about it,” she replies. 

Kat smiles. “You do that.”

As she’s leaving, the agency’s biggest commodity - Cheryl Blossom - breezes past. “Ah Betty!” she exclaims, air-kissing the space near Betty’s cheek. “I loved your shoot in  _ The Bible. _ Very Irving Penn.”

When it comes to the supermodel redhead, Betty can never fathom whether she genuinely means her compliments, or whether they’re some form of satire she’s too naive to understand. She thanks her regardless, and heads on out, thinking guiltily of Jughead and the way she’d bolted from the cafe in East Harlem. 

She spends the remainder of the morning - and much of the early afternoon - in the Park Avenue salon she was introduced to by Kat when she’d first arrived in the city, scrolling through Instagram as the stylist colours her roots the champagne blonde of the hair chart before pulling through the micro highlights to  _ “achieve a more youthful look.” _

Betty wonders when she stopped looking naturally young enough that she didn’t need the additional help, but is unable to reach a conclusion.

Jughead has posted a new image on his page: Hoyt-Schermerhorn station with - seemingly - nobody else there. Her thumb hovers over the heart icon and she taps it, becoming only the hundred and fifty-eighth person to like the photograph. His number is saved into her phone and she thinks back again to their coffee in Spanish Harlem: the startled look on his face when she rushed away, leaving her dress behind. She hadn’t even looked at the pictures he’d wanted to show her - the whole reason they’d gone for coffee in the first place (aside from warming her up). 

Betty types out her apology message, accompanied by the offer of a do-over if the photos haven’t turned out as he’d envisaged. She is, after scrolling through his page, well aware that none of the shots of been uploaded to Instagram. She mentions nothing of the missed Prozac or anything else along those lines, and adds that the following week, she’ll be flying out to Los Angeles to meet with the brand Kat had informed her of earlier. 

_ Sorry again, _ she adds, and then hits send.

By the time she gets back to the apartment, it’s empty. She knows Chic has a few days off before he flies to Miami for his latest ad campaign, and hopes that his lack of presence is either because he’s in the gym, or he’s running errands. 

When he doesn’t show up (or even answer her calls) by the time she’s gone to bed though, Betty suspects her optimism was pointless. 

The lone message that  _ does _ arrive is from Jughead, who tells her he’ll be out of the city for work the day after tomorrow, and mostly likely will be away for a few days. He also adds that the forecast for tomorrow is giving sun, and he’d planned to go to Fort Tryon Park to capture the blossom before the wind tears it away. 

_ I don’t suppose you’d want to come? _ He’s asked. 

She types back, shuffling beneath the sheets.  _ I’ll be there. _

They arrange timings and he asks if she might dress in pale colours. There’s a smile on her face when she sends her reply before locking the screen of her phone, and clicking out the lamp. 

  
  
  
  


At some point in the early hours of the morning, the sound of the door ricocheting back off of the bedroom walls startles Betty awake. She bolts upright to see Chic stumbling towards the bed whilst removing his t-shirt. 

“Chic?” she questions sleepily. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer at first, his concentration fixed on his belt buckle which he appears to be struggling with. 

“Need,” he slurs, “help.”

Initially, she’s unsure as to whether he’s affected by alcohol or drugs - or both - but as she approaches and smells the liquor on his breath, a sense of relief floods her body. A drunk boyfriend doesn’t mean she needs to sleep on the couch. 

“You shoulda been there Betty,” he says as her fingers slide the metal from its hole to free his belt. 

She tugs down his jeans until they pool around his ankles, leaving him standing before her in just his boxers. A slanted grin appears on his face and he reaches out towards her chest.

“C’mon Chic,” she says, backing away. “I have to be up early in the morning.”

Without saying anything else, she makes to head back across the mattress to her side of the bed but he takes hold of her wrist, pulling her up towards him. 

His kiss tastes like whiskey and his tongue is sour as she pulls her head back. His eyes are still closed and his body is heavy as he follows her, tumbling so that he ends up with his chest pressed to hers. Betty turns her head, something akin to panic rising upwards from her stomach.

He works at her neck, sucking on the skin as she twists as far as she can in the opposite direction. One of his hands is wandering beneath the waistband of her pajama shorts as she closes her legs, effectively trapping it there.

“Chic, I want to go to sleep,” she says, her voice sounding high and strained. He doesn’t hear her, his lips silencing her next words, his hand somehow free from between her legs and - mercifully - now not touching her. 

Until it is.

“I need you Betty,” he mumbles, his dick semi-hard against her hip as he seems to give up pulling her to him and catches her off guard - rolling her so he can slide the loose jersey material of her pajama shorts to the side.

There’s a sharp stab of pain between her legs - inside; a string of words she wants to scream out into the room that get lodged somewhere in her throat, and the thumping of her pulse in her ears.

_ It’s not rape, _ she tells herself.  _ He’s my boyfriend; he’s not fully hard; it’s not rape. _

She tries to edge off the bed but he follows, his heavy limbs pinning her to the mattress. There is a mark on one of the curtains opposite. It’s dark and runs in a short vertical line along the chenille fabric and Betty stares at that mark until Chic’s movements go still - and continues to stare at it long afterwards too. 

When - through the thrum in her ears - the sound of snoring filters into the room, Betty closes her legs and slides off of the mattress, an ache throbbing at her most sensitive area as she makes her way silently to the bathroom. She locks the door and takes a single deep breath.

Her stomach lurches violently and she crashes to her knees in front of the toilet bowl, heat burning all the way up from her toes to her forehead as she vomits the sum total of what she’d eaten earlier. 

For a long time, she feels too weak to stand - beads of sweat collecting on her skin until she’s clammy and unsure as to whether she’s too hot or too cold. Somewhere outside of the apartment building, a siren screams into the night. It’s a reminder that she needs to get up - she’s okay - and so she does, pushing off of the tiled floor with sweating palms. 

_ You didn’t say no, _ she tells herself.  _ He’s your boyfriend; it wasn’t rape; you didn’t say  _ no.

  
  
  
  
  


By the time Betty leaves her building the following morning, she’s scrubbed every possible surface in her kitchen. The entire place smells a little like bleach mixed with lemon, and the scent is lodged in her nose and throat. Her eyes are burning a little too, but she blinks in the early morning air as she makes her way to Chambers Street to meet Jughead.

The weather is doing its best to prove that it’s spring, with a clear blue sky and a light breeze that, while not particularly warm, isn’t chilly either. Betty sticks her face into the cotton scarf she’s wearing and inhales the faint smell of fabric softener. It’s kinder on her nose than the bleach and she keeps her chin ducked for the remainder of the journey. 

On the insistence that he accompany her on the subway, Jughead is already waiting for her when she gets there. He has his dark backpack slung over one shoulder and offers his free hand in something of a wave as she approaches the station entrance.

She thinks back to their last meeting and her fingers curl into her palms before she can stop them - the only notification of what she’s done coming when her nails pierce the still-sore burn on her left palm. She pulls her hands up further inside the sleeves of her coat and folds her fingers carefully into loose fists. 

“Hey,” Jughead greets her somewhat uncertain. “It’s uh… it’s a nice day - like it said.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him quickly, throwing the words into the air louder than she’d intended. “About… last time. The cafe.” She knows she should say more, but she doesn’t, keeping the words about the airbrushing and the overwhelming sense of anxiety about almost everything almost all of the time to herself.

It’s burden enough without putting that on anyone else.

“It’s okay Betty,” Jughead replies gently, like he’s frightened the wrong words will send her running again. It’s  _ not _ okay, but she doesn’t tell him this either.   

They board the A after it’s rattled into the station and as she takes a seat on the hard plastic, she winces at the pain between her legs. 

“You alright?” he asks with a look of genuine concern that makes Betty wonder why. The expression he’s wearing doesn’t go away, and so she adds, sinking her fingernails back into her palms, “I pushed it too far in my workout yesterday.”

It does the trick, and he turns his attention back to the backpack seated in his lap. 

“I wanted to show you the pictures from last time,” Jughead tells her after they’ve left Canal Street. “But,” he’s tugging on the grey beanie that he always seems to wear. “I thought it might be best in person.”

“Is there something wrong with them?” she asks. She hadn’t been taking the Prozac when he shot her in East Harlem and she knows the lack of regulation regarding her _ problems  _ can impact on her work.

Jughead turns to her, obviously confused. “No. Why?”

“Oh. Just…”she breathes out and lifts her gaze. “You wanted to show me in person and...well, you haven’t put anything on Instagram.”

He fiddles around with the zipper on his bag until he can release the camera. She watches him switch it on, hears the distinct sound of a digital zoom, and then the soft beeping of him scrolling through the pictures saved to the memory card.

“It’s better on a bigger screen,” he says. “Where you can see the details more clearly, but look.”

He hands her the camera as she sees herself perched on the ladder of someone’s fire escape, the walls covered in dark graffiti behind her. She’s facing forwards, her head tilted up as though she’s looking at someone - and she remembers Jughead instructing her over the phone to do so.

She’s not entirely sure what he wants her to see but she does her best to work it out. Unlike the picture of her he’d posted to Instagram from the warehouse, these shots are all in colour and the bright red of her dress makes for a stark contrast from the darkness of the graffiti. So she tells him so.

Jughead looks at her for a moment, his eyes studying her face in a way that makes her duck her head uncomfortably. “You’re an enigma, Betty Cooper,” he says so quietly that she wonders whether he’s even said it at all. 

She hands the camera back and he puts it away with a soft sigh. They pass Houston Street and Jughead says, “The picture I’ve added to my portfolio isn’t on there, but just know that it’s my favourite one of the lot. I wanted you to see these before I put anything online.”

Betty offers him what she hopes is a smile, and then presses her palms against her jeans for the remainder of the journey.

  
  
  
  
  


They reach Fort Tryon Park after close to an hour of subway travel, disembarking at 191st Street a little after nine. Jughead leads them west until they reach Bennett Avenue, where they take a right and head north to the park’s entrance.

She understands immediately why he’d wanted to come here: the trees are adorned with blossom of all different shades of pink and cream and it’s so much quieter than Central Park. 

“Do you have anywhere to be later?” he asks, their pace slowing to a stroll. She’s slow in her reply and he must take that to be hesitation. “I only ask because the heather gardens are pretty awesome at this time of year and if you don’t have to rush, I thought you might like to see them. If not we can just take -”

“- the heather gardens sound great,” she tells him. She leaves out the  _ compared to going back to my apartment _ that her brain voices silently, and lifts her head. “You should photograph something other than the city anyway.”

Jughead pulls his mouth open in mock admonishment and for the briefest of moments, Betty forgets the feel of Chic’s body behind hers and the smell of the bleached kitchen and the dull ache of the bruises on her knees where she’d crashed to the floor in front of the toilet bowl. She forgets being told how much more prominent her cheekbones were - like it’s a good thing, and the sting of her palms and the fact that the one word she needed to use the previous night was, simply,  _ no.  _

And then she remembers again.

They walk the winding paths, the breeze growing a little stronger - strong enough at least for Betty’s light grey coat to flap against her legs - as Jughead points out why he can’t take specific pictures: the layout of the rockeries; the direction of the shadows; the colours and shapes and textures being too similar.

She’s always known that photography is much more than simply pointing the camera but for him, it’s carefully constructed art. 

“Okay,” he says, stopping. “This, I can work with.”

He indicates a collection of plants in varying purples, and he crouches down until his lens is barely more than a couple inches from the top of the closet heather. She watches him adjust the focus and then take a couple pictures before turning his head to her.

“You want to try?”

“Oh, uh…”

“It’s easy. You just point and click.”

“Really?” she questions, her eyebrow arching at his nonchalance. “That’s it? Guess I’m on the wrong side of the camera.”

“Okay maybe it’s not  _ that _ simple,” he concedes. “But this kind of photography isn’t too difficult.” He hands her the camera and she raises it to her face, looking through the tiny window. “And FYI,” Jughead adds, “You definitely belong at the other side of the lens.” 

Betty crouches to where he’d been positioned, trying not to let the material of her jeans rub between her legs, and angles the camera downwards as he had. She doesn’t respond to his comment and Jughead clears his throat awkwardly.

“So, depending on what you want, you adjust the lens like this,” he says, crouching down beside her and extending his left arm so he can turn the focusing ring. “Soft focus,” he explains as the heather blurs. “And sharp focus. This other ring closer to you adjusts the distance.”

He drops his hand. “Just experiment and see what you like best.”

She does just that, turning the rings slowly until she finds what she prefers: the heather in soft focus so that all she can see are smudges of lilac and white. She clicks the shutter release and hears the distinct snap of the picture being taken. Her finger hits the button again and again until she has a collection of three - almost identical - photographs. She hands Jughead his camera back and he smiles. 

“Scenery always behaves how you expect,” he says, and they continue walking. Betty doesn’t ask what he means, but gets the distinct impression he’s not only talking about photography.

  
  
  
  
  


By the time they reach the wall where Jughead has planned to photograph her, Betty can feel herself willing the time to slow so that she doesn’t have to go back to the apartment. She figures she might be able to kill some time shopping, but that will involve being around more people where she’s likely to be spotted, and as much as she’s wearing light makeup in aid of this shoot, she doesn’t look  _ good. _ Having this version of herself printed in one of the gossip magazines won’t help her score any paid jobs.

“Okay,” Jughead breathes. “I know it’s pretty high but you think you can get up onto the wall?”

She looks at the wide slabs and places her palms flat in order to give herself some leverage. The angle presses her burn against the stone though, and she slips back to the ground, trying her best not to let the hiss of pain out of her mouth. 

Jughead notices anyway. “Careful! Let me - shit, Betty,” he curses, his eyes fixed on her hand. “That looks sore.” 

“I was making muffins,” she offers. “Burned myself on the shelf.”

None of her words are a lie. He nods and she can see he’s trying to ignore the doubts regarding how truthful that little story is. She assumes he’s no baking expert, but he’s not ignorant enough to know she’d be unlikely to get a burn at such an angle as that one from a simple slip. 

But it’s true. 

“Did you tear the skin?” he asks. “Let me see.”

Quickly, Betty snatches her hand away and he blinks, taken aback. 

“Sorry, I -”

“- It’s okay. I’m fine.” She places her hands back on the wall and pushes through the sting of pain. “I’m  _ fine. _ ”

Jughead is quiet as he watches her position herself so that the pastel pink of her sweater is on show beneath her open coat, but she can tell he wants to say something. 

“You think,” he starts, “That you could unwind your scarf so when the breeze catches it, it’ll blow out behind you?”

Maybe it shouldn’t, but the question brings a smile to her lips. Usually, photographers will adjust anything and everything without ever checking for consent first. It’s implied of course - when you sign up for a job, you’re basically allowing for the person in charge of the shoot to do what’s necessary to get the intended shot - but nobody’s ever checked like this. 

Betty sits back up, using her abdominal muscles to hold herself in place as she unwraps the cotton material and Jughead’s eyes widen, his arm reaching out so it’s providing a barrier between her and the drop below. 

Be careful,” he reminds her gently, despite the wall being wide enough almost for the two of them to lie side-by-side if they chose.

“This okay?” she asks, and he nods with a small smile. 

“Perfect.”

She wants to tell him that he’s wrong - nothing is  _ perfect _ \- but she remains quiet as he tells her she can lie back down on her elbows. He keeps his arm where it is until she’s in position, and then steps away to ready his camera.

Betty follows his requests (always  _ ‘can you’ _ and never simply commands) that she tilt her head and angle her body and look away and then back, and toward the river, then back. There are so many clicks of the shutter that she loses count, but the final one comes sooner than she would’ve liked.   

Jughead packs his camera back inside of the backpack and then holds out his hand to help her down. After a moment of hesitation, she takes it and lets him take the weight of her body as she shuffles off of the wall. His palm is soft and warm, and his thumb brushes over her knuckles as he releases her. 

“Thank you,” he says softly.

She shrugs and tries to say, as casually as she possibly can, “I meant it when I said we could do the whole rainbow.”

“Pink isn’t in the rainbow,” he reminds her. “According to the colours of the spectrum at least.”

“Then I guess you still have six more shoots to plan.”  

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead rides all the way back to Chambers Street with her, even though she knows it’s well out of his way. He hasn’t said much about where he lives, but she knows it’s east of the river. It hasn’t seemed appropriate to ask.

As they disembark, he pauses and opens his backpack to pull out the dress she’d worn in Harlem. It’s folded almost comically, and he looks sheepish when he hands it to her.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just thought you wouldn’t want to hold it. I guess I didn’t think about creases.”

“It’s okay,” Betty replies, amused. “Nothing the dry-cleaners can’t fix.”

“You’ll need it dry-cleaned?” he asks. “Shit! Let me give you some money.”

He’s already reaching in his pocket for his wallet when she stops him with her fingertips on his hand. They brush his knuckles and she finds that the skin there isn’t as soft as it had been on his palm. 

“I don’t want your money Jughead.”

He looks at her with an expression she can’t define and says, “I feel bad.”

_ You feel bad because you creased my dress, _ she thinks, and feels her chest tighten at the same time as her abdomen cramps again.  

She chokes out her reply. “Don’t.”

He wishes her good luck on the west coast as they part at the station’s exit. “Not that you’ll need it,” he adds, and she heads slowly in the direction of her building after turning the corner of her mouth into what she hopes is a grateful smile. 

  
  
  
  
  


Finally, after close to a month of conversations about where and what - and a conscious effort to stay pale-skinned and sharp-cheekboned - Betty flies back to Los Angeles to be photographed for her campaign for Saitō-Sano.

It’s a relief to leave the apartment, despite the fact that Chic has rarely been around due to various jobs which have been in different states (and, on occasion, different countries). Betty hasn’t spoken to anyone - including Chic - about what her mind now refers to as _ the incident, _ and when the memory  _ does _ fight its way to the forefront, she’s found ways of blocking it out. 

(The Prozac helps too)

She arrives at LAX under blue skies and a west coast heatwave she’s more than happy to welcome at this point. A perfectly air-conditioned sedan takes her to the hotel the company has chosen in Little Toyko - pretty apt, she decides - where she gets the chance to work out for a good hour before showering and heading to the sushi bar.

Until she moved to New York, she’d never dared try the food she’d heard such horror stories about, but it’s fast become one of her favourites. 

Betty takes a seat at the bar and orders a selection of nigiri from the section of the menu below the one entitled ‘highly-recommended’. Her server brings her bottle of water and she averts her eyes when she realises she’s been staring longingly at the pink cocktail belonging to the woman next to her. Too many calories.

She chews the tuna nigiri slowly, savouring the taste of the soy sauce she allows herself just for tonight, and then begins on the salmon piece. Her mouth waters even as she’s swallowing and she’s careful to take a pause before she begins the shrimp one. Otherwise, it’s over too soon.

She falls into bed after removing the light makeup she’d applied for dinner and finds herself scrolling through Instagram late into the night, and (as is often the case) looking at Jughead’s profile - specifically the latest two pictures he’s posted. One is of the Freedom Tunnel: two sets of train tracks running parallel to each other as shards of light slice through the gloom at perfect forty-five degree angles. 

The second is the one they’d taken in East Harlem on the fire escape. It’s the only picture she didn’t actually pose for: she’s half on the ladder but with her body angled towards the building opposite where Jughead had been photographing from. Betty thinks she must’ve been talking to him via speakerphone, but can’t remember (or work out) what about. The wind has caught her dress and lifted it so it’s pretty much a plume of red.

It’s the only thing of colour in the picture: he’s used black and white to depict the rest, and has titled it  _ interruption. _

There are no hashtags - just her handle. 

It still has more likes than any of his other photographs.  

Absently, she wonders why he hasn’t put up any of the shots he took of her in Fort Tryon Park, but quickly dismisses that thought with a simple explanation: they hadn’t been good enough.

  
  
  
  
  


“And turn!” the photographer commands with a French lilt. 

Betty does so, her hand on her hip angling her wrist inwards so the marks aren’t visible. She’s in her sixth outfit with each series of photographs lasting close to twenty minutes. It’s longer than usual but the lady behind the camera - Mamie Ducois - is intent on getting every minute detail right. She’s beginning to wonder whether airbrushing even exists in France or whether they insist on the real thing being faultless.

Betty doesn’t mind the standing around and the posing in fractionally different ways, but it’s insanely hot inside the building they’re in and she’s starting to feel lightheaded. 

“Prochaine!”

She’s learned this to be French for ‘next’, and so she takes a shaky step forward towards the rail of clothes. A wave of heat rolls upwards from somewhere in her stomach, and her vision blurs then grows dark. Betty reaches out to the wall on her left in order to steady herself, her mouth feeling slack as she tries to ask someone to bring her some water.

The words won’t come out.

  
  
  
  
  


Her eyes open, offended by the harsh white of the wall opposite, and immediately she smells something that turns her stomach. She twists in an attempt to draw away from it but it stays with her and she realises, as she mentally notes the door and the machines to her right, that she’s in the hospital.

“Ms Cooper,” a voice says quietly. “How are you feeling?”

Betty blinks but doesn’t answer. There is an IV hooked up to her left hand, the skin around the tape both itchy and sore. She scratches at it and immediately the nurse chides her behaviour.

“You need to leave that in; it’s replacing the fluids you’ve lost.”

She swallows and finds her throat dry and scratchy as she tries to remember what had happened. She’d been at the Saitō-Sano shoot; had been getting ready to change outfits when she’d felt funny. She remembers wanting water.

The nurse is holding a chart as she approaches the side of the bed. “Ms Cooper, do you remember what happened earlier?”

Speaking feels like too much effort, so she shakes her head. 

“You collapsed at work. You were brought here in an ambulance.”

Betty tries desperately to remember any of that actually happening, but she can’t.

“You’re suffering from severe dehydration.”

She doesn’t miss the way the nurse’s eyes travel to her palm and wrist, and Betty turns her arm over.

“The dehydration caused your blood pressure to drop which is why you passed out,” the nurse explains. “There’s also something else.”

_ Did they call my mom?  _ She thinks. _ Please don’t have called my mom.  _ And then,  _ please don’t have called Chic. _

“Ms Cooper?”

“Yes?” Betty manages.

“Our blood test established that you’re six weeks pregnant.”

The room spins suddenly and she fights to push her question from her mouth. “P- pregnant?” 

“Yes,” she confirms. “Congratulations.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betty did not give consent. She’s didn’t say no using those two letters, but she did not give consent. That is rape. If you’ve experienced anything along these lines, I urge you to make contact with someone who can help.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your kudos and comments last chapter - I was overwhelmed by your support for this storyline. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this one x

_ You've carried on so long you couldn't stop if you tried it _

_ You've built your wall so high that no one could climb it _

_ But I'm gonna try _

 

Jughead is in a meeting with the fashion editor of  _ Living New York  _ when Betty’s reply finally comes through. His phone is seated on the table which, it seems, is no longer considered rude (or at least, not in  _ this _ industry) so he sees her name light up the screen as it vibrates on the mango wood. His fingers itch to open the message but he keeps them clasped around his opposite hand and tries to focus on the vision the editor is giving. 

“I’m thinking champagne saucers everywhere - you know, old school decadence. The blue will look good against that colour.”

“Is it all blue?” Jughead asks. “Every piece?”

The woman sitting opposite with a severe black asymmetric bob rolls her eyes as if she’s never heard something so ridiculous, and Jughead forces himself to bite his tongue. “Of course not. But everything that’s a _ key piece _ is blue.”  

“I want to be sure we’re on the same page,” he replies. “Do you want to focus on the key pieces, the outfits in general, or the whole picture?”

The editor folds her hands on top of each other and seems to think for a moment. “As much is this is a fashion piece, we’re selling a lifestyle,” she says brusquely. “So make  _ that _ your focus.”

Jughead nods and as much as he doesn’t want to reply in words to prove a point, the fact that he knows he needs this job forces him to do so. “No problem.”

He leaves after arranging times and dates and immediately pulls his phone back out of the pocket he’d put it in when they’d left the meeting room.

_ I’m fine, _ Betty’s message says.  _ Thanks for asking. _

He’d discovered, whilst walking past a newsstand the previous day, that Betty had been admitted to hospital in Los Angeles. The front cover of magazines like  _ US Weekly _ and  _ Star _ both have words like  _ collapsed _ and  _ exhaustion _ in bold white lettering, but he had refrained from buying any in favour of actually messaging her directly to check she was okay.

He suspects, despite her reply to the contrary, that she’s not. 

His thumb hovers over the little phone symbol, only a half centimeter away from being able to hit call.  _ Will she even want to speak to him? _ he wonders. Probably not, but he thinks about the marks on her hands and wrists and figures she should at least know that he hopes she feels better. 

Maybe, if he’d told his mom the same thing all of those years ago, she might’ve stayed.

His thumb drops against the screen and the messages they’ve shared give way to a black background with her name written across it in white letters. It rings three times before she picks up, and he’s somewhat surprised to hear Betty’s voice on the other end of the line. 

“Jughead?” she questions, like she’s confused as to why he’s calling her. 

“I uh… just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

There’s a short pause. “You asked me that via text.”

“I know, but… well, I saw you’re in LA and I wasn’t sure if…” he trails off, self-conscious. Now he probably appears creepy. 

“It’s sweet of you to ask,” she tells him gently. “Thank you.”

“Somebody’s there right? To make sure you get home to New York okay? Your boyfriend or your mom or a friend -”

“- I was dehydrated,” she interrupts. “That’s all. I’m fine.” There’s another pause and she says, with what he suspects is forced humour, “If my mom was here, I’d need another day to recover.” 

He makes a chuckle leave his mouth but it’s very obviously not real. “Take care of yourself Betty,” he says. “And uh,” he sucks in a breath, not sure if he should say the words or not. “I know you said you were okay, but…if you’re not and you…. you want someone to talk to -”

“-That’s very sweet of you Jughead.” 

He rubs at the back of his neck and wishes his beanie were there. “Well, okay. Maybe I’ll see you when you’re back in the city.”

Very quietly - so quietly in fact, that Jughead almost doesn’t hear it, she says, “That’d be nice.”

Her tone is different to earlier. He thinks it must suggest that she means it.

  
  
  
  
  


A little over a week later, the day after he’s photographed the key couture pieces for  _ Living New York, _ Jughead is seated at a little tin table at the back of a tiny cafe selling gluten-free everything. He’d intended on ordering something from the baked goods counter before Betty arrives, but upon finding out that every cake houses the grated form of some vegetable, he’s decided against this idea. As is the case in almost every coffee house in the city, there is a stack of stroopwafels on the counter and Jughead has selected a packet to eat while he waits for Betty. Instead of the syrup growing warm and melting between each wafer though, his impatience has led to him waiting only a ten to twenty second period before devouring the first waffle in less time than it took to open the packet. He’s about to start on the second when the woman he’s waiting for enters - almost twenty minutes later than she’d been scheduled to.

He might’ve been worried had she not text to let him know she was running late, but when she sits down opposite, leaving her hat on to shield her face, he feels the concern anyway. 

“Coffee?” Jughead asks, rising from his chair to order her drink.

“Actually, I’ll have a cranberry tea,” she says, and then adds in that gentle way of hers, “Thank you.”

He orders at the counter and asks for a second americano too before heading back to the table where, he notes, Betty’s hands remain gloved. It’s not cold - far from it - and he considers mentioning whether she might want to remove them until he realises what they might be hiding. 

“So,” he starts, sitting back down.

“So.”

“I guess there isn’t much point in asking how LA was.” He’s never been good at jokes, and apparently, he isn’t about to start being good now. 

“Not one of my better trips,” she replies with a resigned expression tugging at her features. 

“But you’re okay now? The dehydration I mean.”

“I’m fine.”

Jughead suspects that this is far from the truth, but keeps this opinion inside of his own head. The waitress from behind the counter delivers their drinks and makes to step away, but then looks back in what he realises must be the way people do when they want to check whether they really  _ have _ seen Betty Cooper live in living colour. She says nothing, which makes Jughead decide he’ll tip more than he might’ve otherwise, and leaves them to it. 

Betty’s eyes remain fixed on the table but she finally removes her gloves. There’s a bruise where he figures the hospital must’ve attached the IV, but other than that, the skin on the opposite side to her palms is pale and soft-looking as she wraps her hands around the steaming mug. 

“How’s work going for you?” she asks.

Jughead shuffles in his seat. “I did something for  _ Living New York _ yesterday,” he tells her. “Haute couture.”

“That’s great.”

“Really?”

She looks a little puzzled and pauses in the sipping of her tea. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

He shrugs, not really sure why he’d even said it in the first place. “I hadn’t heard of it until they reached out.”

“I guess you’re unlikely to come across scattered copies of an eight-dollar magazine when you’re photographing dingy subway stations.”

If he’s not mistaken, there’s a teasing lilt to her tone, and he wonders what he’s done to deserve it. 

“Yeah well,” he says. “I get my New York glamour fix from you. I don’t need any glossy magazines.”

The corner of her mouth turns into a droll smile. “I’m not exactly delivering today: I look awful.”

“You look beautiful Betty,” he says before he can stop himself. It’s true: as much as she  _ does _ look tired and a little thin and pale, she’s still undeniably, incredibly beautiful.

She scoffs and gives him a smile that hurts inside of his chest. “We both know that’s not true, but it’s a nice thing to say.” 

Jughead doesn’t fight her on the point, but disagrees vehemently in his head anyway. 

They finish their drinks and rather than order a second (for Betty; third for him) he suggests they get some fresh air. It’s a nice day and he doesn’t have anywhere to be and, apparently, neither does she. 

  
  
  
  
  


Cadman Plaza Park, framed on all sides by busy roads, is a veritable oasis. The trees haven’t yet grown quite enough leaves to fill out their branches, but it means that the sun can cast its rays over the ground and - more importantly - Betty’s face. Jughead doesn’t have his camera with him, but if he did, he knows he’d be taking a picture of the way the light is filtering across her cheeks. 

He wants to stop and turn to her and say,  _ how can you think you’re not beautiful? _ But he doesn’t. Instead, they carry on walking towards the war memorial and he tells her about an email he’d received from a bar in Brooklyn a couple days ago - regarding the photography of some subway stations.

“So which ones are they wanting for their walls?” Betty asks.

He makes a face. “The two nearest ones to the bar: York Street and Brooklyn Bridge/High Street.”

“You’re making a face.”

“They’re boring stations.”

A soft chuckle escapes her lips. “What were you hoping for?”

He knows his own mouth is twitching at her playfulness, and he stops his smile from spreading too wide. “Somewhere with more grit.”

“Fair enough,” she shrugs, and they fall into a peaceful quiet once again. 

They’re approaching the memorial when suddenly, Betty stops, straightens, and then pulls an expression that has Jughead reaching for her.

“Are you -” he gets out before she bends towards the shrubbery and vomits the contents of her stomach. She heaves a second time and Jughead winces, hand hovering just above her back but not daring to touch. 

When she rights herself again, her cheeks are red and he’s not sure if it’s heat or embarrassment. Thankfully, the park is relatively quiet and nobody appears to have seen.

“You okay?” he asks. 

Betty touches the edge of her hand to her lips and lets out a somewhat shaky breath. “I’m fine. I’m so sorry.”

“What? Betty don’t apologise for being sick!” he replies. “We should get you some water. Do you need to sit down? I can call an uber if you want -”

“I’m not sick,” she says quietly. 

Jughead glances at her - the red in her cheeks now giving way to a paler, more sallow grey. “Was it the tea? Did you -”

“- I’m pregnant,” she cuts in in a tiny voice. 

He doesn’t know quite what to do or say. The overriding reaction he has is to repeat the last word she’s just said, but he knows it’ll be useless. He heard her correctly. Her tone doesn’t imply that she’s pleased, but then, her tone doesn’t often imply that she’s pleased about much concerning herself. 

“Then,” he begins, pausing again. “You should really sit down - even if it’s just for a minute.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Betty does as he suggests. Again, his hand reaches up as if to rub her back on instinct, but he halts any movement before his palm comes into contact with her jacket.  

“Congratulations,” he tells her after a moment, and she blinks at him. “I didn’t say that before, when… when you told me, but I mean it. Congratulations.”

Her mouth twists into a shape that definitely isn’t a smile. He wonders whether it’s supposed to be, or if she has no intention of hiding her trepidation. “Thanks.”

He figures, at that, that it might be the former. 

  
  
  
  
  


They decide to walk slowly to the memorial and then head back to Battery Park City. After her fifth yawn, Jughead decides Betty should probably get some rest and insists on accompanying her back to her building to ensure someone is there to look after her if she’s sick again.

“I’ll be okay,” she says, but he’s not entirely sure he believes her. He only nods and uses his peripheral vision to monitor the colour of her skin and the exhaustion in her eyes. 

When they reach her building, he doesn’t expect her to invite him in but she does anyway. The lobby is grand and has a concierge who offers Betty a, 

_ Good afternoon Ms Cooper  _ with a genuine smile. 

They take the elevator which is mirrored on three sides, until they reach her floor. It’s high, but not the penthouse, and it takes a while for her to find the key to her apartment from the depths of her purse.

When she eventually does manage to unlock the door and let them both inside, Jughead watches as she slides the chain back across, and then checks three times that the door is locked. 

“Come on in,” she says, like he’s not already inside, but he follows as the short entryway opens into the living/dining/kitchen.

“Wow,” Jughead whistles, then immediately feels bad for it when he spies Betty ducking her head. 

“I don’t use it as much as I’d like to,” she admits in reference to the kitchen he’s running his hand along the counter of. “In fact, I don’t even know how to program that espresso machine. I just use the drip.”

He can’t help but laugh at the off-white plastic of the machine she’s referring to seated on the corner of the marble counter. “Did that travel with you from the nineties?”

“It makes good coffee!” she replies mock-indignantly, and he finds a smile crossing his face at the sight of the one on hers. She’s beautiful when she smiles, he thinks abruptly. She is, very obviously, beautiful all the time, but her smile is something else. 

“I’ll take your word for that.”

She shrugs. “I can make some if you want?”

“You don’t have to Betty,” he says. “You’re tired, I should get going.”

“Oh,” she says quietly. “Okay.”

Perception has never been Jughead’s strong point, but he can sense here that there’s reluctance in her reply. He is though, unsure of what to do about it.

What he  _ does _ know however, is that she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend who, whether or not the reports regarding his extra-curricular activities are true, is the father of her baby. A boyfriend who probably wouldn’t appreciate some other man spending too much time with his girlfriend. 

But his loyalty isn’t to Chic, it’s to Betty and whatever this semi-friendship they have is. And so, tentatively, he suggests, “Or, if you feel up to it, maybe we could watch a movie?”

Her head lifts and she looks at him questioningly. “You want to?”

If he wasn’t convinced before, the hope in her voice seals the deal. “Only if you don’t have an awful taste in movies. Tell me you like Hitchcock.”

She just blinks at him as the corner of her mouth turns up. “Horror? In the middle of the afternoon?”

“Any time of the day is Hitchcock time Betts,” he returns, and then realises he’s shortened her name without thinking. The left side of her mouth curls upwards to match her right, and he figures it’s okay.

“If you say so.”

He watches as she pulls off the gloves she’s wearing, setting them on the counter before opening the cupboard above the drip coffee machine. She pulls out two mugs and then turns to say,

“We only have Splenda, sorry.”

“A crime against coffee,” he jokes, but this time she doesn’t smile. “It’s okay - I can have sweetener.”

“I can run out and get some sugar. There’s a store not far, it’ll only take -”

“- Betty,” he cuts her off, crossing to where she is. Her fingers are twitching and he’s concerned that they might head in the direction of her palms. “Sweetener is honestly fine. I was joking.”

“Oh.” Her voice is horribly quiet. “If you’re sure.”

“Why don’t you let me make the coffee? You should probably sit down.”

“Because I’m pregnant?”

_ Yes. And also,  _ “Because just over a week ago, you were in the hospital - exhausted.”

“I can make the coffee,” she reaffirms. “And I’m having tea anyway.”

Of course, he thinks. The caffeine. “Okay.”

Jughead watches her fill and boil the kettle as the coffee drips through into the plastic pot. He’s spotted the regimental organisation of the cupboards as she’s opened three of them in order to procure mugs, coffee, Splenda and a teabag, and wonders if this is Betty’s doing, her boyfriend’s, or whether they have a maid that takes cares of things like lining up the mugs into perfect rows of three. 

The kettle whistles and he expects her to shut off the gas to quell the noise. Except, she doesn’t. She’s staring at the stove but not moving, and he’s just about to reach over to turn the handle when he sees her reach out quickly to put her palm over the steaming spout.

“Betty!” he half-shouts, nudging her out of the way so he can move her hand and turn off the gas. 

Her eyes widen in either horror or pain (probably both, he thinks) and then she clutches at her hand as her shoulders rise. Jughead turns on the cold tap and guides her over to it, careful to be as gentle as he can as he holds her hand under the running water. Already he can see a red circular mark appearing on the soft skin, and he cups from her elbow to the back of her hand using his right side as he continually strokes along her fingers with his left. He doesn’t want her to sink her nails into the skin too. 

Jughead keeps her there until the rest of her skin turns red from the icy cold of the water and then shuts off the tap, keeping her whole right side pressed gently to his.

“Do you have a medical cabinet?” he asks. “Bandages?”

Betty nods once and says, “Bathroom.”

He eyes the still-hot kettle and the block of knives and internally agonises over whether he can let go of her in order to go fetch what he needs. In the end, he guides her with him, letting her navigate the doors until they’re inside of a very large (by Manhattan standards at least) tiled room with a bath and a shower and - above all else - a cabinet above the sink. 

He notes the tube of burn scar cream on the bottom shelf, a packet of birth control pills and a prescription bottle with her name on it labelled  _ Prozac, _ and decides that some of those questions he’s held in need to be asked.

But first, her hand.

There is a packet of gauze squares and Jughead opens it, pulling one out which he sets on the counter beside the sink. There are a couple packets of bandages too, one of which he opens and sets on the counter also. He holds the gauze over the burn, his fingers remaining at the edges of the material so he doesn’t hurt her any further, and then he begins to gently wrap the bandage around her hand. 

He can feel Betty’s eyes on his movements but he doesn’t look it at her until he’s secured the end of the material with microtape. He holds his thumb lightly over her palm and hears her sharp intake of breath.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she whispers. “I just wanted it to stop.”

He swallows but daren’t drop his thumb. “You wanted  _ what _ to stop?”

“All of the noise inside my head.”

He doesn’t know what to say to make it better for her; doesn’t know if he  _ can  _ make it better.

But he knows that he wants to.

“Can I call someone?” Jughead asks. “Your boyfriend or -”

“- No!”

He looks at her panicked expression and something twists in his stomach. 

“No, don’t call Chic. I’m fine, really.”

“Betty…”

“Don’t call him,” she instructs again. “He’s working anyway and he.…he doesn’t know.”

“That you hurt yourself?”

She shrugs - a tiny raise of the shoulders that’s so slight he almost misses it. “That I’m pregnant. Nobody… you’re the only one I’ve told.”

Jughead is careful with the way he exhales, breathing slow and quietly so she won’t think it’s a sigh. It is of course just that - albeit a controlled one - simply a natural reaction to the past fifteen minutes. 

He’s not even really sure how he ended up here - in Betty Cooper’s apartment as something of a friend who, it turns out, is coincidentally the only person besides her that knows she’s pregnant - although he suspects it’s a series of choices and not something as abstract as fate that has him standing in her bathroom. 

He  _ has _ to ask. “Did he hurt you?”

“No!” she says quickly, but he registers the flash of nervousness in her eyes and suspects that might not be the truth. “He’s just…. He’s Chic and… he didn’t hurt me - not intentionally.”

“Not  _ intentionally _ ?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” she repeats bluntly, and he knows he needs to stop there.  

“This is going to sting,” he tells her softly. “You should probably take some pain relief.”

Betty shakes her head. “I’ll be okay.”

Finally he lets go of her hand, releasing it so it falls to her side. Jughead gathers the wrappers from the gauze and bandage, scrunching them until they’re in a tight ball he can throw into the trash. 

Neither of them saying anything for a long time. Despite the fact that she lives in the most populous borough in the city, her apartment is significantly quieter than his, and Jughead finds himself wondering whether that’s the whole point: blocking out the noise. 

“Can I make you some tea?” he asks finally.

Betty’s eyes are watery when she looks at him and she blinks in quick succession until they’re not longer shiny with unshed tears. “You don’t have to stay.”

“I know,” he says in what he hopes is a convincingly simple tone. “I’m trying out your coffee machine. Can I make you some tea?”

She steps forward, her hand reaching out and for a moment, Jughead thinks she’s going to wrap her arms around him. In the end, it drops back to her side and she stays where she is, the tiniest of smiles twitching at her mouth. 

“Yes please.”

  
  
  
  
  


Hitchcock doesn’t seem to fit the tone of the afternoon (or, he thinks again, maybe it really and truly  _ does _ ) but they settle on  _ Rope _ from Betty’s vast array of online movies. He figures she must have some sort of subscription but decides not to ask.  

“This was his first colour movie,” Jughead tells her as the opening credits roll upwards. “And based on a real life murder case.”

Betty sips from her mug, holding it gingerly with both hands. 

“Did I make it okay? Tea isn’t really my forte.”

“It’s right,” she replies quietly. “How’s your coffee?”

“Surprisingly good. Maybe I should scour some upstate yard sales in the hope of finding one of those machines for myself.”

He hadn’t intended to make her laugh, but the small burst of air from her lips makes him feel slightly less uneasy. The credits end and the camera pans from the street to the dark grey asphalt of a balcony before the scene changes to that of the character being strangled. From the corner of his vision, he can see Betty settle a little deeper into the couch, her eyes on the screen as she sips at her tea. Jughead does she same, sinking back against the cushions and crossing one ankle over the other.

They’re around forty minutes in when he realises Betty has fallen asleep. Her head has dropped forwards and her arms are relaxed on her lap. He turns down the volume so that the conversation between the dinner party guests is much softer, and watches her chest rise and fall with each breath she takes. He finds his eyes travelling to her stomach which - though covered by her sweater - still appears flat. Jughead hasn’t ever really thought about it before, the formation of life inside of someone else, and it’s equal parts amazing and terrifying. Betty is growing something - some _ one _ \- and yet there’s medication with her name on it and marks on her skin that make it obvious she’s struggling to look after even herself.  

He  _ does _ allow himself to sigh this time, looking back at the tv screen briefly before his gaze settles on the woman beside him once more. The angle she’s fallen asleep at will undoubtedly result in a stiff neck and a sore back - neither of which can possibly be good for her. There’s a blanket folded into a neat oblong on the arm of the couch and Jughead unfolds it, rising to drape it over her so she won’t get cold. Very gently, he holds each of her shoulders so he can guide her body into a lying position where it’s easy to lift her legs so they, too, are on the couch in the space he’d been occupying. She stirs but doesn’t wake, and he tucks the blanket around her, smoothing the wisps of hair away from her lips so they won’t end up in her mouth. 

Her skin is soft and he’s unsettled by how much he wants to keep stroking it, but he forces his hand back down to his side and heads to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee.  _ Rope  _ continues to play in the background, but he can barely hear the words. He pours the liquid from the jug into his mug, spoons in another heaping of Splenda from the jar in second cupboard from the right, and heads back to the couch. There’s a leather chair at the end of the coffee table which looks expensive, but Betty’s chest is rising and falling so rhymically beneath the chunky blanket that he decides it’s best to take the chair and hope he doesn’t spill his coffee. 

  
  
  
  
  


_ Rope _ finishes and autoplay decides, based on this choice, that he’d like to watch _ Dial M For Murder. _ Jughead has no real issue with this, other than the fact it’s getting close to dinner time and he’s a little hungry, and shifts in the chair as the credits begin.

A little less than halfway through, he hears mumbling from the couch and turns his head to see Betty blinking sleepily. Her hair is a little mussed as she lifts her head,and the skin beneath her eyes is pink and more puffed than usual, but, he thinks, she looks pretty damn beautiful all the same.

It’s a thought he shouldn’t be having, and he removes his feet somewhat guiltily from the coffee table where they’d been resting. She smiles at catching him in the act, and he rubs his neck as he says, quietly,

“Sorry.”

“I fell asleep,” Betty rasps, the thickness of her voice indicating she’d been in a pretty deep sleep. 

“You did - partway through  _ Rope. _ ”

She looks at the screen and her brows crease. “This is a different movie?”

“Yes, this one’s.... Yes.”

She sits all the way up, the blanket pooling at her lap as she rubs her eyes. “You stayed.” 

Jughead clears his throat. “Of course.”

“What time is it?”

He looks at his phone despite already knowing the answer. “Just after six-thirty.”

She nods. “Are you hungry? I could make something for dinner.”

“I could eat,” he decides. “But you’re tired. Do you ever just order in?”

A wry smile appears on her face and he finds himself intrigued as to what it means. There are so many nuances to her expressions that he could spend days photographing her and probably never see them all, he thinks.

“I do,” she tells him. “But not the kind of food you like.”

“Seriously? The no-carb kind? As  _ takeout? _ ”

She ducks her head with a delicate laugh and the only time Jughead can remember being this happy that someone else was happy was before his mom left; when FP wouldn’t be drinking and he’d say something that would make Gladys laugh, and Jughead would look at the lightness in her eyes and think  _ maybe it’ll be okay this time. _

“A balanced meal,” he says. “That’s what we should all be eating right?” 

She produces a menu for some southern-inspired restaurant that serves burgers and fries in addition to something called a  _ protein bowl _ which is what Betty orders. He settles for the beef patty, concedes that it’s in a wholemeal bun, and adds a side of mac and cheese to their order because if he’s going to be denied two halves of brioche, he’s going to make up for it elsewhere. 

They eat on the couch, side-by-side again, as the second movie neither of them have followed comes to an end. Jughead tries not to watch how slowly Betty chews her grilled turkey and kale, but finds himself silently noting that she swallows around every thirty-three seconds or so.

He’s reluctant to leave her and as much as he tells himself it’s because of the marks on her arms, he knows that’s not the full story. By her final few mouthfuls though, she’s stifling yawns and he can tell she needs to sleep - this time in an actual bed. 

“You don’t need to get up,” he says after suggesting this, stilling her movements with a hand gently atop of hers. “I can see myself out.”

“Jughead?” Betty calls, just as he’s about to open the door.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you - for today and for… thank you.”

He nods, and forces the lump in his throat further down so he can say, as he leaves, “Take care of yourself Betty.”

He lets the door close softly behind him, and takes a moment to lean against the wood before heading towards the elevator. His phone vibrates in his pocket when he reaches the lobby, and he pulls it out to find a message from the woman he’s just left.

_ Let me know when you get home,  _ it says.

He allows himself a small smile as he types back, 

_ I will.  _


	6. Chapter 6

_ Fever rising in the setting sun _

_ Cocaine in your eyes and bullets in your gun _

_ 'N blood in your nails is scratching for the faith _

_ With a noose 'round your neck and a needle in your vein _

 

The sunlight is streaming in through the tiny gap in the curtains, and all Betty can think is  _ no. _ She doesn’t want to get up; doesn’t want to even roll over in the fear that it’ll jolt her stomach and send her running for the bathroom. 

Chic is due back from his trip to London later in the day, and she has no idea how she’s supposed to act like everything is normal. The last time she’d had to do that was with Jughead, and it had taken so much of her energy to smile and talk and keep her nails away from her palms that the minute she’d stopped working so hard, she’d held her hand against the red-hot spout of the kettle, resulting in a circular burn on her palm. 

Her stomach seems intent on reminding her that she’s carrying a foetus inside of her - one that, when she’d summoned up the courage to type ‘seven weeks pregnant’ into Google, she’s found to be the size of a blueberry. 

Betty does though, of course, have to go to work. After the fiasco with Saitō-Sano in Los Angeles, the company have been gracious enough to reschedule so that she can be photographed in the outfits she didn’t get the chance to model. There’s promo work to be done right here in the city and, she tells herself, everything needs to appear normal. Nobody can know she’s pregnant; nobody can even suspect.

She isn’t entirely sure why she’d even  _ told _ Jughead. She’d been so desperate that he not treat her as an invalid that the words had just slipped out, but the unexpected result of telling him has made her feel (if only slightly) less alone. 

Betty still isn’t quite sure how what had begun as a work partnership and nothing more has somehow evolved into something resembling what she thinks might be friends, but she’s trying hard not to question it. Other than her mom and sister, Kevin and then - eventually - Chic, he’s the only person who checked in after she’d been taken into the hospital in LA. 

She can still hear his voice in her head, uncertain and tentative as he’d implied that if she ever needs to talk, he’s there. 

And then he’d accompanied her back to her building after she’d thrown up in the park; had held her hand so gently under the running water to stop the burn from spreading; had taken the care to bandage the wound using breathable gauze; had made her cranberry tea and covered her with a blanket and sat with her to eat dinner. 

The thought of all of those things make her chest tighten and loosen at the same time. There is still good in the world, she thinks, and it’s that which makes her peel back the sheets in order to slowly sit up. 

She makes it to the bathroom without having to run, and the vomit burns her throat on the way up as she rests on her knees in front of the toilet bowl. Tears sting her eyes even though she’s pretty sure she’s not actually crying to begin with (although when she’s finished throwing up, the tears _ do _ still keep coming) 

Betty splashes her face with cold water, rinses her mouth and then brushes her teeth before heading to the kitchen to make tea. She’s discovered that the peppermint kind settles her stomach, and if she eats a dry cracker too, she’s beating the nausea.

She takes both outside, sets them on the little table on the balcony and then returns to the couch for the chunky blanket to wrap around herself. The traffic below is noisy and aggressive, and it almost does enough to drown on the voices in her head that keep bringing up the word  _ termination. _

She doesn’t want to entertain them; doesn’t want to be the girl who’s stupid enough to have forgotten to take her birth control and has to end the life of something so tiny so she can continue to be pictured in glossy magazines.

(But she’s not sure she wants to bring a child into this world of hers either)

Her teeth snap the cracker and crumbs scatter across the blanket. Betty picks at them, dislodging the dry flakes from the threads of material until the fabric is fuzzy and a little spoiled in places. 

Like her, she thinks absently, as she curls her hands around the steaming mug of tea.

  
  
  
  
  


There are two messages on her phone when she returns to the bedroom to straighten the sheets. One is from Chic:

_ The agency want to see me. I’ll call you when I’m done. _

The other is from Jughead:

_ How are you feeling today? If you’re still up for it, we can meet around 7 tonight? _

She answers Chic first with a simple,  _ okay, _ and then smiles at Jughead’s opening question.

_ Nauseous, _ she replies, but adds, _ I’ll be fine by 7. What shall I wear?   _

It doesn’t take him long to send her a message back:

_ Something dark - I want to focus on shadows. _

And then a second message comes through before she can reply.

_ I read somewhere that peppermint and chamomile teas can help settle an upset stomach. _

Betty can’t explain the feeling that reading those words give her: it’s part way between a flutter and a lurch of her stomach, and she finds herself wondering about his parents and how wonderful they must’ve been to raise a son as thoughtful as him.

_ I’ve just had a mug of peppermint tea, _ she types into her phone.  _ But I might try chamomile. Thanks for the recommendation. _

Like Jughead had, she sends a second messages in quick succession. 

_ Shall I meet you at Pier 54? _

They’d discussed this shoot over a series of messages half a week prior, with Jughead explaining that he was interested in capturing the almost desolate nature of the place where the survivors of the Titanic had docked all of those years ago. Betty had wondered (though hadn’t asked) whether he wanted to include her in the images because she’s desolate too. 

His reply comes as she places the final decorative cushion in the centre of the bed.

_ I’ll meet you at 14th Street station. _

There’s an unspoken  _ so I can walk you there, _ and she exhales as she looks at the bed, wondering quite how she’s going to sleep once Chic is sharing the mattress with her again. 

_ He’s your boyfriend, _ she reminds herself.  _ He’s your boyfriend and you love him. _

  
  
  
  
  


There are more hours than Betty had realised until seven pm. She cleans and answers some work emails, vomits into the toilet bowl a half hour after eating a clementine, looks up ‘morning sickness’ on her phone and then promptly deletes the browser history, and makes herself a second peppermint tea.

She takes it to the balcony where the sun hasn’t quite made it over the top of the building opposite and settles into the seat as her phone vibrates with an Instagram notification. 

Jughead has tagged her in a new picture which he’s entitled  _ pink.  _

It had been taken the day they’d been in Fort Tryon Park is and complemented on each side by two different photographs of the heather garden. Betty studies the picture carefully, looking at the way the city buildings in the background fade to mere grey-brown oblongs. She is quite clearly the focus with her scarf drifting backwards in the breeze and her pastel sweater and coat combo. The wall, which she hadn’t realised before, is built of stone in a pinkish tinge, and there’s a scant scattering of blossom sweeping the flags to her left. Her eyes are closed (which she doesn’t remember doing, so perhaps Jughead had caught her mid-blink) but, strangely, she looks somewhat at peace.

He’s really,  _ really _ good at this, she thinks. 

There are already over a hundred likes and a collection of comments that range from congratulating Jughead on a great picture to asking whether he and Betty are having an affair. Speculation like this comes with the industry territory, which is what she reminds herself, but she can’t help but worry whether Chic might see and demand she stop working with him.

It’s that which sets panic rising in her chest. Perhaps she hadn’t realised it, but (other than when she’s sleeping) the time she spends with Jughead is the most peace she gets from her anxiety. It’s something to look forward to; a calm she hadn’t foreseen.

She’s not ready to give that up.

He hadn’t deserved to bare witness to her holding her palm over the kettle’s spout, and yet he hadn’t run away, or told the media or even scolded her for her actions. He deserves an apology.

Betty wants to do more for him that just say  _ I’m sorry for hurting myself in front of you and for making you feel like you couldn’t leave, _ and the tiny bakery at one the corner of the building opposite gives her an idea. She hasn’t made chocolate chip cookies since she was still in high school back in Yellow Springs, but she remembers how therapeutic browning the butter and combining it with cupfuls of sugar used to feel - even then. Jughead, though never having eaten a cookie in front of her, will probably enjoy eating them as much as she’ll enjoy making them. Win-win, she decides, and - despite the mild, slightly period cramp-like feeling in her lower stomach - she finds her breathing seems to feel a little easier. 

Of course, the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator house none of the ingredients she needs, and so she finishes her tea and heads down to the little grocery store not far from her building. 

Betty buys butter, sugar, flour and chocolate chips, deliberates over a punnet of raspberries which she eventually decides not to buy after recalling something Jughead had once said about cake being ruined by vegetables, and then remembers to add eggs to her basket too.

As she passes the end of one of the aisles, some tins of baby formula catch her eye, and she moves quickly towards the counter to have the assistant ring up her items. She thinks about telling Chic she’s pregnant, and before she can picture his reaction in her mind, bile rises in her throat and she sinks her fingernails into her palms just so she can focus on the stinging pain there.

It works, just like it always does, and a steady wave of calm washes over her as she hands the basket over. 

  
  
  
  
  


Chic enters the apartment as Betty is grabbing her dark grey trench coat. Her sweater is a dark grey too - almost black - which is the colour of her jeans and the boots she’s wearing. His eyes are rimmed with red, and Betty can’t immediately discern whether it’s tiredness or cocaine. 

“Hey,” she says anyway, offering her arms in a hug. “Welcome home.”

He puts a single arm around her and then steps back.

“How was London?” she asks. “The pictures looked fun.”

“They were,” Chic replies. 

“The agency kept you a while.”

“Yeah,” he says absently, leaving his bag beside the counter. 

“What did they want?”

“Why are you asking me?” he says, eyes narrowing. “If you think I’m lying about being there, call them and ask.”

“I don’t think you’re lying Chic,” Betty replies quietly. “I’m just surprised they’d keep you for so long knowing that you must be exhausted from the flight.”

He shrugs. “Guess that’s what happens when you’re in demand.” 

There’s a sort-of sneer on his face, and she can’t work out whether this is a veiled insult meant for her, or whether it’s a cocky admission of self-love. Either way, it makes her grateful that she’ll see Jughead later.

It also makes her question whether this is what she wants to come home to each day. Of course, that isn’t a discussion for tonight, and she slips her arms through the sleeves of her coat before grabbing both the tupperware box from the counter and her purse from the coffee table. 

“Where are you going?” Chic asks.

“To meet a friend.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, and Betty wonders whether he might be about to start questioning _ her, _ but all he finally tells her is,

“I’m going out tonight. Not sure if I’ll stay here or crash at Darla’s.”

Maybe she shouldn’t feel the slight release she does at those words, but nonetheless, she picks up her purse and feels slightly less anxious about coming back here later. 

“Okay,” she says, and then lets him kiss her because that’s what they usually do. She closes the door behind her, checks three times that it doesn’t reopen, and then heads downstairs. 

Jughead is already waiting when she leaves the subway station, his backpack containing his camera slung over one shoulder. He smiles wide as she offers her hand in something of a little wave, and Betty wonders whether the curl of hair that’s falling out of his beanie has always done that.

“Hey,” he greets on an exhale, almost like he’d been holding his breath. His arms come up simultaneously, and Betty watches them, waiting until they meet in a hug which never comes. Instead, his gaze travels the length of his arms to her face, and his hands return to his sides. 

“Hey,” she says, and then glances at the tupperware box she’s clutching. “Uh, these are for you. They’re chocolate chip - I made them this morning.”

“You made me cookies?” he asks disbelievingly. “That’s… thanks Betty - they look amazing.”

He genuinely seems to mean it too, and takes one from the box, biting into it and spilling crumbs down over the other cookies inside the tupperware. Maybe it should be a little gross, but it makes her smile for a reason she can’t work out. The action feels good on her lips.

“And they taste amazing too,” he adds, barely swallowing before taking another huge bite.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

“For what?”

She glances down at her palm, and then back up, hoping she doesn’t have to use words. Jughead stops chewing. He swallows with a large gulp and tells her,

“Please don’t apologise for that.”

Her shoulders rise and she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. He stills her with his fingers wrapping gently around her wrist. “I mean it,” he says. “You don’t owe anyone an apology - especially me.”

His words make tears prick in her eyes and she wants to hug him; wants to whisper  _ thank you thank you thank you  _ over and over and over until her lips are no longer trembling with silent sobs. 

“Still,” she starts, and his thumb comes to brush over her palm, skimming the edge of the puckered skin. 

“The cookies are delicious Betty,” he reminds her softly, “Thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  


They head west from 14th Street station in the direction of Pier 54. The sun is low in the sky and is casting the buildings in golden hues. Beyond the near-constant stream of cars travelling parallel to the river, the sky is ribboned in orange, pink and the palest of blues and Betty thinks how carefully Jughead must time things - to know they’d have to arrive around this window in order to catch these colours and shadows. 

“That’s the gate,” he tells her.

The rusting arch stands somewhat defiantly: an embodiment of the statement  _ I will not be moved.  _

“It looks sad somehow,” she replies, and he nods in agreement. 

“Precisely.” 

She looks at the metal and then back at Jughead. “How’re we going to get round?”

“You’re not,” he says simply. “I am.”

He looks around - presumably for any signs of a security guard or cameras - and is either content that there are none or he’s happy to risk it, because she watches him secure his hands around the cylindrical rods of the fence and push up off of his left foot. He seems to climb with ease, and swings a leg over the top of the posts, throwing his body over too before sliding and jumping onto the ground on the other side.

He wipes his hands on his jeans, coating them lightly in orange-brown rust, and grins. 

“You made that look easy,” Betty says.

For a moment, he looks decidedly  _ un _ easy, but then focuses on pulling his camera from his bag. “Years of untapped athleticism.”

“So you weren’t a jock in high school?”

He scoffs and raises an eyebrow at her. “The closest I got to being a jock of any kind was having a best friend who was co-captain of the football team.”

She thinks about quiet, observant teenage Jughead and decides it might’ve been nice to know him back in high school too. 

“It still didn’t make me cool,” he adds wryly.

“But look at you now.”

“I’m not sure I pass for cool Betty,” he smiles. 

She shakes her head and says, in a quietly earnest way, “Well I think you’re great.”

He lifts his head and gives her a look which she thinks must mean he’s surprised - or even grateful. He says nothing more, and neither does she, then turns his attention back to the camera.

When he’s ready and has taken a few test shots to determine whether the light levels are sufficient, Jughead asks her to step closer to the gate. 

“Can you put your right arm through the space between the rods?”

She does as she’s asked.

“And then hold it out as if you’re reaching out to grab someone’s hand.”

Her fingers extend until they’re almost straight and she sees him adjust his lens. 

“Perfect,” he says quietly. “And then look out over the water as if you’re willing someone to come.”

Betty is fully aware that she’s not an actress, but tries her hardest for him regardless. She hears the snap of the shutter before there’s a pause followed by several more snaps in quick succession. 

“Okay,” Jughead announces in that way she’s learned he does when he’s satisfied with something. He checks through the photographs on the little screen and Betty becomes more aware of the mild cramps she’s been experiencing all day having intensified a little. She shifts her weight and angles her left hip downwards which lessens her discomfort. 

“They’re really powerful Betty,” Jughead tells her, turning the camera so she can see for herself as he must note her position. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replies as she takes in the image on screen. “You’re really good with light.”

“It’s a good framing tool,” he says, and takes the camera back. “You okay to do a few more?”

“Of course.”

“Then maybe we could try both hands holding onto the railings, but rather than looking out across the water, look down.”

Betty positions herself as he asks, and just as he’s snapping the second and third shots, she feels something wet between her legs.

On instinct, she knows what’s happening. 

“J - Jughead?” she says shakily.

He lowers the camera and must instantly know something is wrong because the expression on his face is grave. She wants to throw up, but the vomit doesn’t come. Instead, she manages to tell him she needs to go to the bathroom.

He asks no questions, just shoves his camera back into the bag he’d brought it in and climbs back over the railings. 

“There’s a playground three blocks from here,” he tells her. “It has restrooms.”

She nods and glances down at the front of her jeans. They’re black and show no signs of any colour seeping through, but in her heart, she just knows. 

“Betty?” Jughead asks quietly as they cross to West 13th Street. “Do we need to go to the hospital?”

“I...I’m not sure.”

He pulls out his phone and tells her, “I’m booking an Uber. If we see a city cab first, we’ll take that.”

By the time they reach New York Presbyterian, Jughead is clutching her hand and rubbing circles over her skin. Round and round he moves his thumb, over and over and over, and it’s what she focuses on when they have to climb out of the black Prius. He doesn’t let go as they enter through the doors, nor when they pause at the list of departments.

It’s obvious that he doesn’t know whether they need maternity or the emergency room, but a woman dressed in a uniform asks them if she can help, and Betty hears him say solemnly,

“She’s bleeding. She’s pregnant.”

After that, Betty sees a series of corridors and ceiling tiles and bright lights until she’s in a room that houses a bed and a separate bathroom.

“The doctor will run an ultrasound,” the uniformed woman tells her gently, and Jughead circles his thumb over her skin until she can’t remember what it’s like to not feel the odd callouses of his thumb. 

“I want to use the bathroom,” she says, and the woman nods. Jughead swallows and stills his movements, and her footsteps feel light as she closes the bathroom door behind her. 

She touches a hand to the material of her jeans and brings it away, wet and streaked with blood. In the mirror, she sees that her face is pale and almost grey - ashen, she thinks might be the word - and she washes her hands in the sink below. She almost wipes them back on the front of her jeans, but stops herself just in time. There are paper towels next to the mirror and she takes one first, then a second and a third and a fourth, and carries on pulling them out until they’re scattered across the floor by her feet. 

There’s a knock at the door. “Ms Cooper, the doctor is here.”

Betty looks in the mirror and then back down at the scattered paper towels and thinks,  _ I hope Jughead is still here. _

He is of course, shifting his weight anxiously from one foot to the other when she opens the door. He looks marginally relieved to see her and steps forward to take her hand again, squeezing gently as he says,

“I’ll be right outside.”

Her mouth opens - maybe, she thinks, to ask him to stay - but the words don’t come out and she watches him duck his head as he leaves the room.

“Perhaps you’d like to take off your coat,” the doctor suggests, and she follows her carefully disguised instruction.

On the bed, she runs the transducer over Betty’s stomach. There is no rhythmic thudding heartbeat. There is no smile on the doctor’s face. There is no let up in the cramps in her abdomen.

“I’m so sorry Ms Cooper,” she says. “At eight weeks, we would expect to hear the baby’s heartbeat.”

She nods once and despite the overwhelming urge to cry, she doesn’t.

It’s relief that she feels. Nothing but relief. 

  
  
  
  
  


Betty leaves the room she’d been taken to wearing some hospital issue sweat pants and underwear that has a pad so thick that it feels like she’s wearing a giant diaper. Jughead is waiting outside of the door as he’d said he would be, and jumps up at her appearance. She desperately doesn’t want him to ask if the baby is okay, and maybe he hears her silent imploring because the words he  _ does _ utter after he’s exhaled are,

“Let me take you home.”

Only when she gets into the cab and Jughead tells the driver to head to North End Avenue does she realise that’s the opposite of where she wants to go.

“No,” she says very quietly. “I don’t want to go back there.”

The cab driver doesn’t hear and pulls away from the curb. Jughead turns and says, with his fingers reaching to her shoulders, “Betty, you need to get some rest.”

Her fingers twitch to sink towards her palms, but fighting the urge takes her focus away from the cramping in her lower stomach. “I don’t want to go back there,” she repeats. 

She hears him swallow. “Then where?”

There’s a building on the left with flags outside. Above the entrance are the words _Garden Inn_ and they slow to a stop in the queue of traffic. “Here,” she says.

_ Anywhere, _ she thinks.

Jughead asks the driver to pull over and fists some bills at him before he slides out and holds his hand for her to take. She doesn’t, simply because she’s not entirely sure what that might do to her if she allows herself even for a moment to let him comfort her. 

“You don’t have to come with me,” she says. The pad which is stuck to her hospital-issue underwear feels heavy and Betty wants to change it. She wants to lie down without any lights on. She wants to forget.

Jughead doesn’t answer, and instead walks beyond the glass door into the lobby. 

He gets her a room and she stares at a potted plant whose leaves appear fake but turn out to be real. 

“Fifth floor,” he murmurs quietly, and waits for her to head in the direction of the elevators. 

Nobody joins them and they exit when the doors open out onto a long corridor. Unlike the one in the hospital, this isn’t stark in its whiteness. They stop outside of a door and Betty hears the sliding of the keycard and the bleep of the lock’s acceptance. Jughead holds the door open and says,

“Betty?”

She enters, taking in the large bed and the thin white cotton of the privacy drapes wafting in the air conditioning’s cool breeze. 

“Is this okay?” he asks, like she’d have any opinion whatsoever on the furnishings.

“It’s fine,” she replies anyway.  

For a minute after he’s closed the door, it’s quiet. The air conditioning unit whirs and a truck outside chugs along the street, but other than that, there’s nothing. 

Nothing, at least until Jughead says, “Can I call someone for you?”

Someone.  _ Can I tell someone what’s happened? _ he means. 

“I don’t want anyone to know.”

“What about your boyfriend? He might -”

“- I don’t want him to know where I am,” she says quickly. “I just want to be alone.”

He looks around the room and, very obviously conflicted, says, “If you’re sure.” His words seem choked and difficult, but Betty stands firm with what little energy she has left. She wants a bath and a hot water bottle and a pillow that doesn’t smell like Chic or their apartment or the fabric softener her mom always uses. 

“I’m sure.”

Jughead does little to disguise his sigh, but then steps forward to squeeze her hand. “I’m really sorry Betty.”

“It’s okay,” she says, although what she really wants to ask is, “Why?” 

He makes towards the door, but then turns back and says, “I’d rather stay with you.”

She shakes her head and repeats, “I just want to be alone.”

After following him to the door and then checking three times that it’s closed, she turns and heads in the direction of the bathroom. Both taps spill their contents elegantly into the tub, and she adds a healthy dose of the complimentary bubble bath so that she doesn’t have to look down and see the water tinged pink between her legs.

  
  
  
  
  


Betty has nothing but the sweatpants to change back into once she’s clean. The drapes close via a button by the side of the bed, and she holds it down until all natural light has been eradicated from the room. 

From inside of her purse, her phone pings with a notification and she takes the trip over to the chair she’s left it on in order to shut it off. As she does so, she sees a message from Jughead.

_ I’ll be outside _ is all it says. 

_ Outside where? _ she wonders, and then realises. She pads quietly over to the door, the pain low in her stomach having worsened enough that she has to bend over as she walks. 

Sure enough, when she looks through the circular hole in the top centre of the door, she sees Jughead, back and head resting against the wood, knees pulled up to his chest. Betty breathes quietly as she watches him. He’s not talking on his phone, nor is he even scrolling through or looking at the photographs on his camera. He is, simply, sitting there. 

_ Being outside. _

She lowers the handle slowly and the tell-tale click of the lock shifting punctuates the quiet. He turns at the noise, craning his neck as she opens the door. He doesn’t say anything, rather, just watches her.

Eventually, Betty manages to pull the words from her lungs. “You can come inside if you want.”

He watches her a moment longer, as if making sure she really means it, but finally rises to his feet with his backpack clutched in his right hand. 

“I want to sleep,” she tells him and he nods. The lamp beside the bed is still turned on and casting a circle of gold above the left side of the headboard. 

“Then sleep Betty,” he says in an almost-whisper. “I’ll just be here if....if you need me, or uh, anything.”

He goes to take a seat on the chair her purse isn’t on but she shakes her head. “The bed’s big enough. I’ll stay on my side so I don’t… so there isn’t-”

Jughead’s hand takes hers and she stops talking as his thumb smooths over her knuckles. For a moment, she thinks he might be about to pull her in for a hug but he just squeezes her hand and murmurs,

“Okay.”

She doesn’t draw back the quilt, afraid she’ll bleed through onto the white sheets. Jughead takes off his jacket and the flannel shirt he has on over his dark t-shirt, and lays both over her so she’ll stay warm. There is a lump in her throat and she blinks quickly until she can swallow again. 

“Thanks.”

“Of course,” he says, and lays down carefully beside her.

  
  
  
  
  


From her peripheral vision, Betty can see his fingers only millimeters from hers. They’ve twitched several times and she’s held her breath during that period, waiting for him to touch her. The skin on his arms is bare and she can feel the warmth radiating from his body. His breaths are heavy and if she didn’t know any better, she’d assume he’s asleep.

But he’s not.

He exhales with a sort-of whistling sound and then says, “Should I turn out the lamp?”

Betty turns to the side so she’s facing away from him. There’s a streak of dust where the maid hasn’t wiped the bedside table properly and she watches more collect in the spill of light. 

“Sure.”

She hears the click before the room disappears into blackness. Jughead shifts so he’s on his back again, but much closer to the opposite edge of the mattress. “This okay?”

The words are scratchy as they rise from her throat. “It’s fine.”

She doesn’t know how long they lay like that. The air conditioning is filtering cold air into the room and it’s making the hairs on her arms stand, but she doesn’t want to turn it off and let Jughead know she’s awake. She suspects he is too, and she almost wants to ask if - maybe now that they’re away from everyone and every _ thing _ else - he’ll hold her. 

She doesn’t.

Some time later - perhaps it’s minutes; perhaps it’s hours - Betty feels the mattress dip as he moves, steadily inching closer until his pinky is grazing hers. She works hard not to let him know she’s felt it despite the fact that her right hand seems desperate to clutch his. 

Her knees are raised towards her stomach so she’s curled, somewhat ironically, she thinks, in the foetal position. Jughead sighs into the air and then, as if he can read her mind, turns onto his left side. 

His touch is feather-light at first, and incredibly tentative until his arm is curled around her side and his palm reaches all the way to her right shoulder blade so he can pull her closer to him. His left arm, which is trapped between their bodies, flexes and slides slowly under her pillow where it meets his other one. 

Betty hears him sigh again, long and heavy, and then his nose and mouth come to rest in her hair. He’s everywhere and so warm and gentle as he shifts just slightly so the position for both of them is more comfortable. She can feel a burning high in her throat and behind her eyelids, and she fights hard to keep her breathing in its rhythmic pattern. 

And then, she feels her stomach roll as Jughead presses a kiss to her head.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to the last chapter was overwhelming. Thank you so much x

_ And I hear your ship is comin' in _

_ Your tears a sea for me to swim _

_ And I hear a storm is comin' in _

_ Anchor up to me _

 

It’s been years since Jughead spent an entire night lying awake with his eyes closed. He remembers the nights he’d hold Jellybean until she’d fall to sleep, and then he’d lie there listening for the sound of his mom crying or his dad coming home or the beer bottles knocking against the battered wooden coffee table.

This time, it’s different.

It’s the same too, in many ways, but unlike when he’d been a child there is a way he can make things better this time. The way does  _ not _ however, factor in the trip to Camden and then Philadelphia he’s supposed to be making tomorrow to photograph for a feature to be published in  _ The Issues. _

Betty stirs a little in her sleep and he smooths his hand up and down her back, rubbing gently until she settles back against him. It’d taken so long for her to fall into unconsciousness that he doesn’t want her to have to wake up yet. 

Jughead breathes in at her crown, a faint scent of lavender making itself present beneath his nose. He wonders whether her hair is as soft as it looks, but doesn’t dare card his fingers through the strands to find out lest he rouse her prematurely. 

With her movement over the course of the night, his jacket and flannel have slipped down her body so her arms are partially bare, and so he quickly repositions both items so she won’t be cold. He’s lying partly on the edge of the towel she’d laid on top of the bed and the ridge is kind-of digging into his skin, but he’s not about to move further away from her. If anything, it only serves to push him closer to Betty’s body so that her knees, which remain drawn upwards to her chest, brush his thighs. 

Some time later - he’s not sure how long - Jughead hears activity in the hallway. There are doors closing none-too-quietly and the protesting squeak of the maids’ cart as it travels along the narrow strip between each side of the hotel. 

Betty wakes with something of a soft groan - maybe even a whine - after the particularly loud slam of a nearby door. He’s careful not to snatch his arms away, but he’s also not sure how she’ll feel at finding herself encased in the hold of someone who’s not her boyfriend; someone who’s not the man whose baby she lost last night. 

In the end, Jughead pulls his hand from her back to her side, stroking her left arm over the flannel. 

“Hey,” he whispers, squeezing gently. He doesn’t ask how she’s feeling.  _ Pretty shitty _ is the only answer, he imagines. 

“I need to…” she starts and then lifts the top half off her body off of the mattress. It means that his hand falls onto the edge of the towel, no longer pressed against her skin.

“Yeah,” he says, realising what she means. _ I need to change. _ “Yeah, of course.” 

Jughead sits up too, inching back to his side of the bed as Betty shuffles to the bathroom. It’s still relatively dark thanks to the lining in the curtains but he can see a dark patch on the white towel and he knows it means she’s bled through the only pair of pants she has. 

The lock clicks on the bathroom door and he finds himself straining to hear her movements. He’s not entirely sure what it is that he’s listening for (maybe, simply, it’s that she’s even moving at all) but he isn’t prepared to hear her cry. 

There’s a soft thud - her sitting on the toilet seat perhaps - and then the unmistakable gasp of air that means she’s crying. The worst part (or at least,  _ one _ of the worst parts) about it all is that she’s very obviously trying to stifle the sobs leaving her mouth.

He wants to tell her it’s okay; she should cry as loud and as long as she wants to.

He doesn’t say those words. Instead, he looks on his phone for their exact proximity to a store which might sell something comfortable for her to put on. Sweatpants or leggings or even pajama pants. 

It turns out that there’s something called  _ NikeLab _ which he doesn’t really like the sound of, but at least he figures he’s likely to find something for Betty there - and it’s only three blocks away. 

Jughead listens out for the sound of the bathwater running and then the sound of it stopping, followed by the tell-tale splash of her climbing into the tub. Only then does he leave the room, remembering to take the keycard on his way out.

It’s relatively early which means it’s still rather quiet in the area surrounding the hotel. He reaches the sports store quickly, having done something of a run-walk to get there, and is met by a sales assistant dressed head to toe in activewear despite the fact that she’s very obviously only going to be walking around the store. 

“Can I help you?” she asks. Jughead realises in that moment that he most definitely does not look like the kind of person who would wear this type of clothing.

“Yeah I need some leggings or, uh, sweatpants for my… friend,” he says.

“Of course. Is this a girl or a guy?”

“Girl,” he says quickly, rubbing at the back of his neck in the way he recognises he does when he’s uncomfortable. 

“Okay. Do you know her size?”

He’s being led to a rail of pink leggings and as much as he knows very little about Betty, he doubts she’ll want anything in cerise. 

“Small, I think,” he guesses. “But uh… nothing bright or pale.”

“Something dark,” the sales assistant smiles. “It hides the sweat better.”

Jughead tries not to think about the blood stain on the white towel but the image creeps into his mind anyway. He’s steered in the direction of some navy and black leggings, some with large ticks on the leg; some very plain with only a tiny tick on the upper thigh. 

“We tend not to stock sweatpants for women,” she says. “But there are a few choices in the men’s section I’d be happy to show you if your friend will just be wearing them at home.”

A pair of leggings on the rail in front of him remind him of the ones Betty had been wearing when she met him at Canal Street Station all of those weeks ago, and he takes hold of them, the material soft and stretchy in his grasp. 

“These are fine,” he says. “Where can I pay?”

After half-snatching his receipt from the assistant’s hand, Jughead hurries back to the hotel. There is the lingering scent of coffee and freshly-baked pastries and it makes his stomach growl hungrily, but he doesn’t detour from his route. He does, though, remind himself to order breakfast from the room, if not only for him, for Betty. 

She’s not in the room when he slides the keycard through the slot, and for a moment, he panics at the lack of sound from the bathroom. But then, mercifully, he hears the plughole gurgling as the water drains from the tub and a wave of relief washes over him.

Gently, so as not to startle her, he knocks on the door. “Betty?”

It opens after half a minute or so, to reveal her wrapped in a large white towel, water droplets trickling down her arms and chest. She eyes the bag as he holds it out towards her.

“I thought you might want some… uh… different clothes. They’re leggings.”

She blinks at the bag for a moment and then her gaze lifts to his face. She steps forward, her arms coming to wrap around him as she rests her head against his chest.

“Thank you,” she whispers. 

One of his arms folds around her and the other reaches to stroke through the strands of blonde hair. When she pulls back, his t-shirt is damp but he doesn’t care.

“I’ll order something to eat,” Jughead tells her. “That okay?”

“I’m not really hungry,” she replies. “But you go ahead.”

Betty takes the bag from him and then shuts the door softly. There is a leather-bound menu seated on the set of drawers below where the tv is mounted and Jughead picks it up, drawing the curtains so he can make out what the writing says. 

There is an array of items he could eat ranging from pancakes to something called a corned beef hash, but he decides - for Betty’s benefit - he should order things that are plain, but with nutritional value. It goes against his ordering principles ( _ or principle,  _ seeing as the only stipulation he has is that it should taste good) but he decides it doesn’t matter today.

Eventually, he settles on toast and eggs, a toasted plain bagel, the fruit plate and - because he can’t not - two portions of home fries. Even if Betty doesn’t eat her share, he’s pretty certain he’ll be able to eat it for her. 

She exits the bathroom wearing the new pair of leggings and then must note the towel on the bed because her eyes go wide.

“Jughead,” she starts, “I’m so sorry about -”

“- Stop,” he tells her gently, but firmly. 

“But the towel -”

“- You don’t have to be sorry for that. I don’t  _ want _ you to be sorry for that.”

She removes it anyway, and he hears the sound of running water as she no doubt tries to clean the towel in the sink.

“I ordered some breakfast,” he says when she returns with an embarrassed flush high on her cheeks. “You should eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Please Betty?” he asks. “Even if it’s only a little.”

She regards him with a strange expression - one he can’t name or even categorise as to being good or bad. In the end though, she gives a single nod and Jughead finds himself feeling ever-so-slightly less helpless. 

And then he thinks about having to leave for Camden this afternoon - thinks about having to leave  _ Betty _ \- and feels powerless all over again. He’s beginning to suspect there’s something more to it than just knowing she’s vulnerable. She reminds him of his mother in some ways (it’s only a slight resemblance, but it’s there) but that’s not it either. She’s beautiful, of course, and that’s part of it, but again, it’s not the whole reason. He thinks it might be the fact that she is, quite obviously, just a  _ good _ person. And someone that good deserves so much more. 

Jughead is well aware that he might not be the one who’ll be able to give it to her.

(But he’s also aware that he might be the one who can guide her away from something that isn’t)

There’s a knock at the door and he rises from the edge of the bed to answer it. The server looks as though he might be about to wheel his tray containing their breakfast into the room, and Jughead takes it off his hands before he can cross the threshold. 

“Thanks,” he says gruffly, and tips using the few remaining notes in his wallet. 

The server nods and bids him a “Good morning sir.”

Betty is seated on the edge of the bed when he re-enters, and looks warily at the tray of items. “That’s a lot of food.”

“Trust me, I can eat what you can’t manage. What would you like?”

“Is that mango?” she asks, rising to get a better look at the fruit plate. “I guess I could eat that.”

Jughead passes her the plate and pours them both a cup of coffee from the jug. As he’s passing that over too, her realises she hasn’t been drinking coffee.

“Oh,” he says aloud. “Uh, I can order some fruit or herbal tea. I forgot you weren’t -”

“- It’s okay,” Betty says. “The only reason I wasn’t drinking coffee was because.... well, you know.”

_ The baby. _

He swallows. “Right.”

They eat in silence (or, more accurately, Jughead eats in silence while Betty picks at the fruit plate, takes a few sips of coffee and then wordlessly declares that she’s full by replacing the plate back on the trolley). 

He’d rather she eat something with carbohydrates, but figures she has enough people telling her what to do, and so he remains quiet on the subject. She’s the one who breaks that by turning to him and saying, simply,

“Thank you.”

He shrugs - an attempt to be nonchalant. “Of course,” but Betty shakes her head and inches very slightly closer.

“Not  _ of course. _ The hospital, the leggings, just...being here - you didn’t have to do any of it.”

He wants to ask her why she’s let him; why it’s him she’s shared this with and not her boyfriend, but he figures he already knows the answer. 

“I wanted to do it.” It seems a strange thing to say, because it’s not really what he means, but Betty must get it because she says, very quietly,

“You’re  _ good, _ Jughead.”

He swallows, because he  _ has _ to tell he’ll be gone for the next couple days. “I have a job,” he starts. “Tomorrow.”

“That’s great,” she replies in a way that sounds sincere, but then she’s put on a good act since he met her so he can’t be entirely sure she means it. 

“It’s in Camden and then Philadelphia.”

She nods slowly and the corner of her mouth slips from the slight smile it was arranged into. He realises then that she must’ve genuinely been pleased about his news. 

“You’ll be gone,” she says quietly. 

“For a few days.”

Her inhale is shaky and she attempts brightness with her question. “What’s it for?”

“ _ The Issues, _ ” he replies. “They’re doing a feature on the amount of money being spent on luxury housing on the Pennsport waterfront which looks across to the rundown streets opposite in Camden. Rich vs poor.”

Betty’s lips curve upwards again but this time, her smile doesn’t work. “Your shots will be great Jug.”

_ Jug.  _ It’s the first time she’s shortened his name and he likes it. It stirs something inside of his chest though, and he doesn’t dare try to work out what it means. It does, however, give him an idea.

“If… if you wanted to get away from the city for a few days…. I have a room booked.” His fingers reach for his beanie when Betty doesn’t answer. “You don’t have to come, I just thought -”

“- You mean it?” she asks. “You’d let me come with you?”

_ Let her? _ “I think I’d like it if you came,” he admits. 

Each corner of her lips lifts a fraction and her smile is, once again, genuine despite its tentativeness. “When do we leave?”

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead accompanies her to her apartment. She hasn’t asked him for much over the course of time they’ve been whatever they are (friends doesn’t seem right, and yet there isn’t any other label he can think of that fits) but she _ does _ ask if he’ll come with her to pack a bag.

Through some quick research on his phone while Betty was in the bathroom, he’s discovered that she’s likely still miscarrying - and will continue to do so for up to a week from now. His heart actually aches for her and everything she must be feeling both physically and emotionally, and rather than walk or take the subway, he orders an Uber and they head to her building in the relative comfort of another Prius.

In the lobby, Betty is visibly worried, her fingers flexing and then curling in towards her palms. Jughead does what he can to stop her without actually uttering the word, and squeezes her hand lightly in his. 

“Chic might be home,” she whispers, and then turns to the security man seated behind a desk. He’s already wished her a good morning, and Jughead didn’t miss the narrowing of his eyes at both his presence and her appearance.  

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he says, because it feels right and because it’s the truth and because he strongly suspects this might be what she’s afraid of. 

She doesn’t reply but he is vaguely aware of her stepping closer so he figures he can’t be too far off the mark.

Chic is not there. Jughead waits in the living room while Betty fills a holdall with items she needs. He realises, once she rejoins him, that she’s changed her clothes too. The leggings are still on, but now with a sweater that’s too baggy (or maybe that’s the point) It looks expensive, and despite everything,  _ she _ looks expensive.

“Do you think we could stop by Duane Reade?” she asks him quietly. “I need some… uh…”

He realises what she means, and nods his answer. “Of course.”

Her cap is pulled low over her face when they enter the drug store, and Jughead isn’t sure whether he should accompany her to the counter for moral support or whether he should hang back by the sliding doors. In the end, he reaches a compromise and lingers by the self service tills where Betty scans a selection of sanitary products. She glances over as she’s waiting for the machine to spit out her receipt and he attempts something of a reassuring smile. When her lips don’t curve upwards to mirror his, Jughead figures he’s failed. 

She attempts to take the holdall back off of him as they leave but he shakes his head, “I’ve got it.”

They take the subway to his apartment in Brooklyn so he can gather everything he needs, and he wishes he’d made more of an effort to tidy away before he’d left to meet her the previous day. There are several dishes draining on the sink and his refrigerator houses little more than some milk, eggs and bread of questionable freshness. It means he can’t really offer her anything to eat or drink and he makes a mental reminder to stock up on candy at the gas station he’ll fill up Archie’s car at. 

He changes his clothes, decides against having a shower so Betty doesn’t have to wait around any longer than necessary, and douses himself in deodorant just in case. 

They take another Uber to Archie and Veronica’s place so that Jughead doesn’t have to cart his photography equipment on the subway, and he silently wills his best friend’s girlfriend to be out shopping or getting her nails done or whatever other frivolous activities people like Veronica Lodge do. 

Of course, she’s there, her dark eyes sparkling with questions she’s obviously been instructed not to ask. Jughead had sent Archie a text from the Uber to let him know Betty will be joining him, but that she needed privacy. He hadn’t elaborated on  _ something’s happened, _ and Archie, to his credit, hadn’t asked. 

He hands over the key to his Pontiac - the car that had been a gift from Veronica’s father for something Jughead doesn’t want to learn any more about - and says,

“Have a safe trip.”

And then it’s just him and Betty.

  
  
  
  
  


The traffic on the turnpike is awful. They get as far as Keasbey before they reach a standstill. Jughead presses the buttons on the radio to see if they can figure out what’s happening, but it seems pretty pointless. They’re not moving.

From the corner of his eye, he can see Betty shifting somewhat uncomfortably in the passenger seat but she doesn’t complain. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologises, and she lifts her head from where it’s resting against the window.

“What for?”

He’s not really sure. “The traffic I guess.”

She frowns ever-so-slightly at him. “You can’t control traffic Jughead.”

He knows that, but  _ still. _ “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” 

“Are you going to let your boyfriend know where you are?”

She shifts uncomfortably again. 

“You don’t have to answer that; I shouldn’t have asked -”

“-It’s okay,” Betty shrugs. 

Except it isn’t.

“I’ll call him when we get there.”

Ahead, the traffic begins inching forward. “When we reach the next gas station, we can stop,” he tells her. “I didn’t bring any snacks other than the cookies you made and they’re too good to last the whole drive.”

She tilts her head so she can see him better. “What’s your favourite food?”

“Burgers,” he answers without hesitation. “Specifically, the cheeseburger with extra pickles, plain mayo, shredded lettuce and onion, fries and a milkshake - all from Pop’s.”

“Pop’s?”

“It’s a diner back in Riverdale - upstate.”

“That’s where you’re from?”

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Do you miss it?”

It’s their turn to creep forward and Jughead shrugs. “Sometimes. Not often.”

He misses Pop’s. Misses the drive-in. Misses Toni and Sweet Pea and Fangs. He doesn’t miss much else. 

“I miss Yellow Springs,” Betty admits quietly. “It’s in -”

“-Ohio,” Jughead answers. She smiles and for the first time, it reaches her eyes. He’s heard of her home town and  _ that’s _ what’s made her happy. 

“You know it?”

“I’ve never been,” he replies. “But I’ve heard that it’s beautiful.”

“It is. You should see it in the autumn,” she tells him. “If you ever decide to visit.”

The traffic picks up speed a little and he changes the radio station. “I’ll remember that.”

They drive for twenty minutes before they reach a gas station and Jughead pulls to a stop beside the pump. The car isn’t particularly thirsty but he fills the tank anyway while Betty heads to the restroom with her hat pulled low over her face again. She’d removed it in the car, revealing blonde waves that must be a result of it drying naturally after her bath. 

She returns just as he’s heading inside to pay and insists that she doesn’t wants anything to eat or drink. He buys a selection of candy from the stand on the counter anyway, gets two bottles of water from the refrigerator and then spies some fruit in a basket at the end of one of the aisles. He decides on an apple and a banana (he likes both and has no preference over which one he gets after she’s made her choice) and then adds two flat black coffees from the self-service machine to his purchase. 

Negotiating the swing door and then the trip back to the Pontiac is tricky, but he manages to reach the passenger side door before Betty rescues him from his predicament. 

“I know you said you weren’t hungry,” he starts as she takes the banana and apple from their precarious position in the crook of his arm. “But just in case.”

Her fingers graze his as she takes the coffee cups and he feels how soft they are; starts thinking about how they’d feel against his arm or maybe even his jaw. A wave of guilt rolls upwards from his toes like a tidal wave and he wonders why his brain has even dared to venture there. 

“That’s kind of you,” Betty says, but the praise leaves a sour taste in his mouth. 

(He’s careful, when he hands her the packet of Skittles, not to let any part of her touch him)

  
  
  
  
  


They hit traffic again as they join the 295. It’s rush hour and the radio is playing a song Jughead hasn’t heard, but apparently it’s number one on the Billboard top 100. He glances across at Betty who’d fallen asleep just before they’d crossed Rancocas Creek. Her knees are pulled up to her chest as her head is resting against the window. She’s twisted somewhat awkwardly, and he’s not sure if it’s just because she’d fallen asleep like that or because it’s a position that relieves some of the discomfort in her lower stomach. 

Initially, he’d planned on taking some photographs of Camden at night but with Betty now in tow, he figures he might have to wait until the following day to get his shots. A car honks its horn in the lane next to them and he wants to roll down his window; tell them to be quiet because  _ Betty Cooper _ is sleeping in his passenger seat, but of course, he doesn’t. 

She stirs but doesn’t wake and he finds himself wondering more about Chic. He’d like to ask him why he didn’t call Betty last night; why he didn’t wonder where she was; why he  _ still _ hasn’t called; why he hasn’t made sure she doesn’t dig her nails into the skin of her palms. 

The horn honks again and Jughead discovers, when he turns his gaze back to the road ahead, that it’s him who’s at fault this time. The traffic is moving and he quickly shifts into drive before the girl beside him wakes. 

Eventually, he makes the exit onto Christopher Columbus Boulevard and the hotel he’s staying at comes into view. He parks and kills the engine, but Betty still doesn’t wake and he’s forced to rouse her by gently rubbing the top of her left arm. 

“Hey,” he says softly as she blinks sleepily at him. “We’re here.”

She lifts her head away from the window and slowly plants her feet back on the floor. 

“You okay?” Jughead asks, and she nods.

“Just stiff. I’m fine.”

He pulls both of their bags from the trunk and then grabs his laptop and camera bag too. Betty is rolling her neck when he appears from behind the back of the car. The air is cool without a jacket and she shivers, rubbing the tops of her arms over her sweater. His sherpa is packed inside of his holdall and so he can’t offer it in a bid to keep her warm, but the consolation is that they can access the hotel lobby from the underground parking lot. 

On her insistence, Jughead lets her carry her own bag and purse - mainly because he’s struggling with his laptop and camera - but she isn’t bent over at her stomach as she walks so he figures it’s a positive sign.

Betty keeps her head down in the lobby as he’s given the keycard and signed the relevant paperwork and then they head to the elevator. It’s so similar to the previous night in so many ways, only this time, the weight pressing on his chest isn’t quite as heavy. 

The bed is a large double. There’s a couch in the corner of the room and he heads to it, telling her, 

“You can have the bed.”

Betty looks up, tilting her head slightly to the side. “It’s big enough to share.” There’s a pause, in which she seems to realise something. “Unless you don’t want to. I can take the couch if -”

“- I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he interrupts quickly. He  _ won’t  _ let her think he doesn’t want to lie next to her. 

“You don’t,” she replies very quietly. 

Jughead nods. “Okay then.”

  
  
  
  
  


Later in the evening, after the sun has set and the lights of the city are glowing in the distance, they decide to order pizza. (Or, more accurately, Jughead suggests they order something that belongs to a food group other than sugar and when Betty doesn’t protest, he makes the call to Dominoes) 

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” she asks after he’s hung up. 

“Go ahead,” he tells her, and turns on the tv as the lock clicks into place on the bathroom door. 

She’s dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt when she emerges in a cloud of steam, but she looks refreshed and, dare he think it, a little less sad. He can see the marks on her arms but she makes no attempt to cover them, and he finds himself saying,

“You look better.”

_ He _ does not look better - that’s for sure - and he decides to make use of the shower too before the pizza arrives. He gathers a clean t-shirt and the plaid pajama pants he rarely wears but has brought for Betty’s sake, and heads into the bathroom to make use of the free toiletries and decent water pressure. 

When he shuts the water off however, having rinsed the pine-scented shower gel off of himself, he hears what sounds like crying from the bedroom. The towel he wraps around his waist is white and soft, and he’s torn between hurrying to get dry so he can check on Betty, and taking his time so that she can be sad in peace.

When he hears her, breath catching and sobs choking her syllables, he picks the former. 

“It’s everything,” she says. “The drugs and coming home late and… and you  _ hurt _ me Chic.”

Jughead tries not to listen - it’s not his conversation to have and there’s an obvious reason why she waited until he was in the shower to call her boyfriend - but he can’t help overhearing the next part.

“When you came home from Darla’s drunk and… and...” There’s a pause, during which she must take a large breath. “I said I didn’t want to but you wouldn’t stop.”

He feels his stomach lurch violently. He’s suspected for the last twenty-four hours that Chic had hurt her, but he hadn’t imagined in  _ that _ way. Hadn’t imagined he’d  _ raped _ her. 

Quickly, he pulls on his t-shirt despite the fact there are still water droplets trickling down his chest. It sticks to his skin but he ignores it and pulls on his pajama pants too so he can go to her.  

Her hands are covering her face when he opens the door, and her shoulders are shaking. There’s a phone on the bed (hers, obviously, he concludes) but she’s not speaking.

_ Betty, _ he opens his mouth to say, but her name gets caught in his throat. He can’t say it in the right way: in the way that means _ I’m sorry _ and  _ you deserve so much better _ and  _ why didn’t you tell anyone? _ all at the same time. 

In the end, he crosses to where she’s standing, cups her elbow as gently as he can, and then draws her to him. It breaks the rule he set himself earlier at the gas station, but she presses her face - still covered by her hands - into the crook of his neck and he decides that it can’t matter now. She lets him stroke her hair and he sighs quietly against her crown because none of this is fair. 

Jughead doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but they’re interrupted by a knock at the door. The pizza, he realises, and reluctantly pulls away so he can accept it. He all but throws the tip at the delivery guy and quickly closes the door. 

Betty is seated on the edge of the bed, wiping her face with the loose material of her t-shirt. 

“I’m sorry,” she says for some absurd reason, and he shakes his head because he refuses to let her apologise for anything. 

“I wish you’d stop saying that Betts.”

She lifts her eyes to him and he realises all over again how green they are. “I wish I’d met you before.”

Jughead swallows. “I wish I’d met you before too.”

Betty takes a deep breath and then says, “Are you going to let me have a slice of that?”

He wants to hug her again; wants to promise out loud he’ll never hurt her like Chic did. He says instead, “You can have as much as you like.”

When she reaches for a second slice, he smiles. 

  
  
  
  
  


They’re not even twenty minutes into  _ Jessica Jones _ when Jughead feels the warm weight of Betty’s head on his shoulder. The laptop is seated between them, balanced somewhat precariously on his knees, and he lowers the volume so that any unexpected loud noises won’t wake her. 

Ten minutes later, he gives up trying to watch it with such minimal sound and closes the screen, using his pillow to prop up her head as he sets the computer on the floor beside the bed. He turns out the lamp and shuffles back down the mattress so he can rest his own head on the pillow. 

For a while, he lies on his back, staring at the green light of the smoke alarm on the ceiling until he feels her roll closer. Jughead turns so that he’s lying on his side and strokes his fingertips along her spine. 

Betty stirs and opens her eyes a fraction. “I don’t want to go back Jug,” she whispers.

He exhales slowly. “Then we won’t.” 


	8. Chapter 8

_ If teardrops could be bottled _

_ There'd be swimming pools filled by models _

_ Told a tight dress is what makes you a whore _

 

In unspoken agreement, they head south. Jughead steers the car onto I-95 and Betty rests her head against the window, partly so she can watch the passing scenery whizz by; partly so she can watch him also.

They don’t know where they’re headed. Or, Betty thinks,  _ she  _ doesn’t know where they’re headed. It’s both terrifying and somehow freeing, and maybe Jughead has an end destination in mind, but if he does he doesn’t share it. 

She’s running. She knows she’s running, despite the fact that she’s firmly planted in the passenger seat of Jughead’s best friend’s Pontiac, and she can hear so many voices in her head screaming their different orders: her agent telling her to be at the Saitō-Sano promotion venue early enough to have her cheekbones highlighted properly; Chic ordering her to come back to New York - reminding her of what they are together (no  _ I love you Betty  _ just  _ I didn’t mean to hurt you, so come home _ ) the photographer from the shoot in Mexico instructing her to breathe in and angle her hips so the curve of her thigh isn’t visible; her mom, incredulous at the thought of her not going to the shoot she’s supposed to be at tomorrow, insisting that she’s throwing away a fantastic opportunity. 

And then there’s Jughead’s voice. It’s quiet and calm and sincere; so innocent that’s it’s almost overpowered. Just before her nails break the skin of her palms, it grows louder.

“Betty?”

She realises then, that it’s no longer in her head. He’s looking at her, gaze resting on her hands momentarily before it switches back to the road ahead. 

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I…” she pauses, unsure of what the right answer is. _ For hijacking your photography trip? For losing a baby I’m not sure I wanted? For the sense of responsibility you seem to feel? _

“Don’t be sorry,” he tells her. “I just wanted to get your attention.”

“For what?”

“So you wouldn’t hurt yourself.”

There’s a lump in her throat.

“And so I could ask whether we can stop for food. I’m pretty hungry.”

She feels the corners of her mouth twitch at that - at the fact he’s unlike anyone she’s met before. Only ever saying just enough. Only ever being gentle.

“You ate breakfast two hours ago.”

He smiles at her and it’s like something from a movie - Like he isn’t really hungry at all; like he just wants a reaction, and he’s got it.

“One hundred and twenty minutes without food is like a lifetime for me Betts,” he counters.

This time, she grins too.

They pull off the freeway and turn into the lot of a rather lonely-looking diner. Earlier, she’d eaten half of the granola, yogurt and fruit compote that room service had delivered while Jughead wolfed down waffles with bananas and lashings of syrup, home fries and some eggs. She’s not, therefore, particularly hungry, but he looks so hopeful as the car rolls to a stop that Betty decides she’ll try. 

She walks behind Jughead, initially without thinking too much about it, but then worrying that there might be people inside that will recognise her; people that will call out,

“Betty Cooper!” or worse, people that will take photos on their phones while she’s unaware and then share them on social media. 

The little bell on the door chimes and she remains behind Jughead who leads them to a table in the far corner of the diner. It’s not busy and the few customers seated in booths are mostly truck drivers - not the kind of people (usually, at least) who will likely have seen her in any celebrity gossip magazines. She has no idea if he does it consciously or not, but he takes the seat facing the rest of the diner so that her back is turned to anyone else. 

They order coffee and Jughead adds way too much sugar to his mug, stirring so vigorously that the liquid almost sloshes over the rim. Betty adds a sachet of Splenda to hers but stirs in the figure of eight her mom taught her was the polite way to mix the two together. 

It isn’t yet eleven so she isn’t sure what exactly she’s supposed to order. Jughead seems to have no such predicament and opts for a second breakfast consisting of something called a breakfast burger (which, in her opinion, sounds horrific) and hash browns. 

“Where do you  _ put _ it?” she asks, aghast, and he chuckles.

“I’m a medical marvel, Betts.”

She likes the way he says her name like that: _ Betts.  _ Like it’s something he only does with her. Maybe it is.

He begins pointing out various things on the menu he thinks she might enjoy. Betty isn’t entirely sure what he’s basing this on, given that nothing on the list of options is remotely healthy (or nutritious, for that matter) but she learns a little more about him from his suggestions. 

“I already ate, remember?” she says. “This menu’s a little overwhelming.”

What’s also overwhelming is the thought of all of the calories in each dish. She wants to enjoy a stack of buttermilk pancakes with strawberries - really, she does - but close to a decade of ingrained habits doesn’t relinquish its hold on her thoughts quite so easily. 

In the end, she decides on the mini stack because there won’t be so much waste when she only eats one of the little discs. 

Their waitress writes their order down on a notepad she produces from her pocket, then promptly refills their coffee cups from a fresh pot. On her return, she takes a closer look at Betty, casting her eyes from her face down to the part of her that’s visible over the table and that’s when she knows she’s recognised her. 

“Are you… Betty  _ Cooper?” _ she asks.

Betty opens her mouth to reluctantly admit her identity but then Jughead does something she’d never expected. “She gets that a lot,” he says, and the waitress nods.

“You look so similar.” 

She leaves after that, returning to the counter with the coffee pot and Betty reaches her hand across the table to his. He lets her cover the fist his left hand is arranged into with her palm, and her fingers curve around the edge so she can squeeze it gently.

“Thank you.”

He shrugs like it was nothing. “Thought you might just want to eat your second breakfast in peace.” 

Sometimes, all she wants to do is wrap her arms around him; have him hug her back and never let go. She settles instead for leaving her hand over his and he lifts his thumb out of the fist so it can stroke over hers. 

The waitress brings their food and she manages two of the pancakes, eating the tiny pieces she cuts them into slowly as Jughead wolfs down his burger. He devours her remaining pancakes as well, and then pats his stomach as he makes a sort-of groaning noise that Betty figures is meant to tell her how full he is. 

She finds herself smiling as she says, “Perhaps the extra syrup you asked for was a step too far.”

“If pancakes aren’t drenched in the stuff, there’s no point,” he replies simply, but his mouth is pulled into a grin and she curtails her eye roll. He hasn’t judged her for  _ anything: _ she’s not about to comment any further on his sweet tooth. 

  
  
  
  
  


As they approach Baltimore, they turn off I-95 and take I-70. They’re heading west, Betty realises, and she wonders (though daren’t ask) if he plans to drive anywhere close to Yellow Springs. It’s a long way - at least another seven or eight hours without stops or traffic - and despite Jughead saying they won’t go back to New York, she’s not naive enough to know that there was an unspoken  _ for a while _ following his words. 

It’s quiet inside the car save for the rumbling engine and the intermittent whizz that comes each time they’re passed by another car, but it’s a comfortable quiet. She watches the scenery change from grey concrete back to green fields and trees and then, just after they pass Myersville, Jughead guides the car off the highway.

They come to a stop at a wall of green trees that seems to stretch as far as Betty can see. 

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, and she knows what he means is  _ are you still bleeding? _

Her voice is quieter than she means it to be when she says, “I’m okay.”

She is, of course, still miscarrying. She knows it could be another week yet before her body is done getting rid of the baby it didn’t want, and part of her chest aches every time she visits the bathroom and sees the evidence on the pad in her underwear. Today, there are still cramps but they’re more bearable; more period-like. 

(It doesn’t make her chest feel any less heavy though)

“We could get some fresh air if you’re up for it?”

Betty nods. “That’s a good idea.”

Jughead suggests she bring the jacket she has in her holdall in case it gets colder as they climb higher. He pulls his own sherpa out of where it’s stuffed, grabs his camera too, and then places his palm lightly on the bottom of her back.

“If it gets too much, we can turn back.”

She nods and can’t quite bring herself to reply with words. His hand drops back to his side and then, maybe because he’s not sure what to do with it, he shoves it deep into his pocket. 

The trail they take isn’t particularly difficult, but it’s longer than Betty had anticipated. The cramps in her stomach don’t grow worse, but they don’t get any better from the exercise either. She’s careful to make sure her face is arranged into a neutral expression so that Jughead won’t insist they turn back so she can rest. He hasn’t yet taken any pictures and she doesn’t want the opportunity to go to waste. 

Eventually, as her body is really beginning to protest against the hike, they reach a stack of rocks. Betty supposes it has a proper name but she’s tired and a little breathless, and asking Jughead would result in letting him know this. 

“Just a couple more steps,” he says with something of a triumphant lilt to his voice, and she decides it’s worth it. 

He climbs up first and then holds his hand out for her to take. He does the hard work, hauling her up to him so she doesn’t have to put in the effort, and she’s grateful all over again. He repeats the action for each stage of the stack until they’re finally at the very top and they can see out over the state park to the lake and beyond.

“It’s really beautiful Jug,” she finds herself saying, and when she feels him squeeze her hand in response, she realises that neither of them have let go. 

She leaves it there, snug and warm against his palm, as she takes in the view. 

After a while, he lets go so he can focus his camera. He snaps away and Betty just watches, seating herself on a section of the rock as he takes photograph after photograph. 

A little way below her are a couple of birds gliding through the sky perfectly gracefully as though they’re in some sort of unspoken synchronised dance, and she watches them dip and swoop and soar as Jughead does his thing. 

His hand on her shoulder lets her know he’s finished, and she rises, trying not to worry about the pad lining her underwear and whether it’ll hold up for the trek back down. 

It does - just about - and she changes in the public restroom before they climb back into the car. 

“Food,” Jughead says as he starts the engine, and they join the highway looking for another place to eat burgers and fries.

  
  
  
  
  


They find somewhere beside a motel that sells a range of worryingly cheap meat products, and Betty sips at her chicken broth while Jughead chows down on a cheeseburger with chili fries. 

Thanks to their hike, they missed lunch (although they  _ did _ have a second breakfast, so she figures it’s one and the same) and they’re both pretty hungry. 

She watches Jughead rub his eyes after he’s done eating, and she notices then the dark circles he’s sporting. When he heads for the car as they leave, she makes a decision and says gently,

“Aren’t you tired? We could just stay here for tonight.”

Jughead looks up at the peeling paint. “I don’t think it’s quite the same standard of the Hilton.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says honestly. “You’ve done so much driving Jughead.”

He looks at her and then again at the motel. “You’ll be comfortable enough?”

She wishes there was something she could do when he says things like that - something that’ll let him know how she feels. The words - whatever they are - are clogged high in her throat and she can’t get them out. 

In the end, the only thing she can do is walk towards the motel entrance and hope that it’s answer enough. Jughead’s footsteps beside hers seem to indicate that it is.

It’s not yet fully-dark outside but the man behind the counter at reception bids them a  _ goodnight _ regardless, and they head to the second floor via the rusting steps at the side of the building. 

The walls and bedspread are somewhat dated, but the room is surprisingly clean. Betty looks at the double bed and fleetingly, has the thought that this’ll be the third one they’ve shared. Until she started dating Chic, the only times she’d shared a bed with anyone was at a sleepover.

There’s a strange feeling settling inside of her that she can’t name.  

“Are you sure it’s okay?” Jughead asks. “I know you’re…”

“I’m what?”

He dips his head, like he’s embarrassed. “Used to better.”

It’s true: she’s stayed in many luxury hotels in the past few years - all over the world too - but this cheap, tattered-edged motel room is somehow more comfortable than any of them. 

“It’s enough,” she says softly, and he lifts the corners of his lips into a tentative smile. 

“I’ll go get the bags.”

She makes to follow him and he frowns at her. “I can manage Betty. You can wait here.”

Maybe so, but there’s an increasingly worrying part of her that grows anxious at the thought of him not being around; not being where she can see him. Like if he’s away too long, he might suddenly come to his senses and realise that driving halfway across the country with a deeply troubled model he hardly knows isn’t the best idea he’s ever had, and then he’ll leave. 

“Let me help, Jughead,” she says instead of any of this, and - after eyeing her stomach in a way that makes her want to turn away from his gaze - he nods.

“Okay.”

She showers under the near-burning water, rubbing her skin with the lavender and cardamom shower gel she’d brought until she’s certain that she can’t smell anything metallic. 

Jughead is looking through his camera when she emerges from the bathroom, his brow furrowed in concentration. 

“Did you get many good ones?” she asks for something to say, even though she knows damn well everything he’ll have taken will be stunning.

He lifts his head to look at her, and there’s a strange expression changing his face, pulling and twisting his features so that she can’t tell what he’s thinking. “A few,” he says after a moment, and then turns back to look at his camera. 

He seems to finish his inspection of the photographs around ten minutes later, judging by the way he sets the camera on the chest of drawers opposite the bed. 

“I’ll take a shower,” he tells her, and then collects the t-shirt and pajama pants he’d worn the previous night from his bag. 

It’s not yet even nine o’clock but Betty’s exhausted. She climbs under the sheets as she hears the water splashing against the tiles, and then flicks on the tv using the remote on the bedside table, leaving the news on in the background as she checks her phone. There are so many emails and notifications and messages that at first, she doesn’t dare unlock the screen. She’s under no illusion that she’ll be dropped as the face of Saitō-Sano but amongst everything else swimming in her head, the ability to care simply won’t come to the forefront. 

Taking a deep breath, she types in the passcode and composes an email to NYMagency apologising that she can’t make the shoot in the morning. She leaves out the fact that she’s curled up under the scratchy sheets of a motel room bed somewhere off I-70, but  _ does  _ cite the doctor’s recommendation that she rest. 

It’s the first time she’s ever put herself first, and although it doesn’t feel  _ good, _ the weight in her chest as she turns off her phone lessens a little.

Jughead emerges in a cloud of steam a little while later with rather red skin. He must’ve turned up the temperature, Betty concludes, although she doesn’t know how he could stand water so scalding. 

There is no couch. She can see him looking between the bed and the floor, very obviously debating what to say or do. She shuffles across to the far side of the bed and says,

“The sheets are a little rough but the mattress is pretty comfy.”

He swallows visibly but climbs in beside her anyway, careful to stick to his side of the invisible boundary between them. The news is still playing on the tv - there’s been a fatal shooting in Philadelphia involving the police - when Jughead opens his mouth. 

“If we keep heading west, we’ll end up in Yellow Springs.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to?” he asks. “Keep heading west I mean? Do you want to go home?”

He asks the question in such a way that she knows all she has to say is yes, and he’ll willingly drive to Ohio without question. She’s unprepared for the tears that cloud her vision as she thinks about the word  _ home _ and everything it means: sharing ice cream with Kevin at Corner Cone; visiting Flying Mouse Farms to pick up maple syrup for weekend brunch; dipping her toes into the beautiful yellow spring in Glen Helen that the town is named after. 

“Betty?”

She sniffs and turns so she’s looking at him. “I’d like that,” she manages, and then takes his hand in hers so she can squeeze her thank you against his palm. 

(Even after he’s turned off the tv and the light, he doesn’t let go)

  
  
  
  
  


They reach Betty’s hometown a little before seven in the evening. She directs Jughead through the series of turns until they reach Spring Glen Drive and slow to a stop outside of her childhood home. She misses it in a way she’d never anticipated when she’d first been signed to NYM: misses the pale cream siding and the half-dozen steps leading to the red door; misses the large elm tree whose branches always used to scratch against her window during a storm; misses the pink and the flowers and the innocence of her bedroom.

It’s all still there, staring back at her as she looks up. Her parents’ car is in the driveway so she figures they must be home. Perhaps, she realises as she releases her seatbelt, she should’ve called ahead to let them know she was coming - and with a guest also.  

“You okay?” Jughead asks - because he’s always checking. 

“Yeah,” she replies quickly, nodding before she allows herself to realise she isn’t.

“I can stay in the car or get a motel room or -”

“- Don’t go,” she urges. “Please don’t go.”

He exhales in a way Betty thinks might be a sigh, before closing his right hand around her fingertips. “I won’t. Promise.”

Jughead stands on the step below her as she knocks on the door. It takes a while for anyone to answer - so long in fact that she starts to wonder whether her parents  _ are _ actually home - but finally, the door opens and Betty sees her mother for the first time since Christmas. 

“Elizabeth,” she gasps. 

“Hi mom.”

For a while, Alice says nothing, just stands blinking. And then, when she finds her words she asks, “What are you doing here?”

“I needed a break,” she replies, then turns back towards Jughead. “Jughead was on a work trip and he brought me.”

Her eyes narrow and her lips do that pursing thing that Betty learned pretty early on in her childhood meant her mom was finding it difficult to keep inside what she wanted to say. 

“Jug Head,” she repeats, in very two distinct syllables. “Come in, both of you.”

There is a very tense conversation (or, more accurately, a barrage of questions) at the dining table as Betty and Jughead sip coffee across from her parents.

“And you just happened to be coming to Yellow Springs?” her mom asks Jughead.

“Not exactly,” he replies, rubbing at the back of his neck in that way he always does when he’s uncomfortable. 

“Oh?” Alice’s eyebrow lifts - a silent  _ you need to explain. _

“I’m always looking or photographic opportunities for my portfolio and when Betty mentioned she lived here, I thought I would check it out.”

“Check  _ what _ out?” her mom probes, and she only realises her fingers have gone towards her palms when she feels the sting of her nails breaking the skin. She picks up her mug before anyone notices.

“The spring,” he answers in a way that betrays his nerves. 

He doesn’t deserve a Cooper interrogation, and Betty quickly makes her excuses so they can head upstairs. 

Alice has, of course, set Jughead up in the guest room. Betty shows him where the bathroom is and then he follows her to her room, leaning against the doorway as she looks at herself in her mirror. The reflection staring back at her makes her realise that she should’ve put on makeup before coming here (except, she hasn’t brought any). She looks pale and tired and - ironically - her cheekbones are the kind of sharp the agency loves.

It makes her think of Chic and his face and his hot breath on her neck the night he hadn’t listened to her saying she didn’t want to. 

“Are your hands okay?” Jughead asks quietly, interrupting her thoughts.

“My hands?”

“At the table downstairs, you… your palms, Betty.”

She unfurls them and looks at the fresh indents; spots the dried blood in her fingernails. “Oh.”

He crosses to where she is and takes her hands in his, stroking the section of each that isn’t scarred. His thumbs are so gentle like always, and she doesn’t want him to stop. Doesn’t want him to sleep in the guest room either, and yet she knows there’s no reason for him to stay in here with her. 

“Sorry my mom’s so intense,” she apologises.

He lifts the corners of his mouth but his lips don’t smile. “Has she always been like that?”

Betty shrugs. “Pretty much.” 

He doesn’t say anything by way of response, but she thinks he might press his thumbs a little harder against her skin. 

  
  
  
  
  


It’s late when Betty hears a light knock on her door. She flicks on the lamp beside her bed and blinks in the sudden brightness. The door opens a crack, and even though her eyes haven’t yet adjusted to the light, she knows it’s Jughead.

“Hey,” he says in a soft whisper. “You okay?”

She hopes this isn’t a result of the conversation she had with her mom in the kitchen while Jughead was changing into his pajama pants and t-shirt upstairs. The same conversation during which she’d been almost forced to admit why she was here (omitting of course what Chic had done and what it had resulted in and how  _ that _ had ended). 

“Don’t throw away what you’ve built because you’re  _ tired _ Elizabeth,” Alice had scolded. “Are you drinking plenty of water? Avoiding carbohydrates?” 

“You keep asking me that,” Betty says, sitting up so she can see him better.

He slides inside of her room and closes the door quietly behind him. “I guess I’m hoping that you’ll mean it.”

“ _ Jug _ ,”

“You don’t have to be okay,” he tells her. “I heard your mom downstairs.”

_ Oh. _

“And I heard your phone call to Chic the other night.”

Her throat feels thick and it’s difficult to swallow. 

“You won’t be any less beautiful in a week or two weeks or a month,” he says. “And you won’t be any less beautiful if you eat pizza either. Not in my opinion anyway.”

Her breath is shaky and she tries desperately not to cry. Jughead crosses the room, seating himself on the edge of her bed so that it dips and she ends up sliding towards him. 

“Thank you,” she whispers as he strokes the wisps of hair out of her face. He stares at her face for a moment, his blue eyes intense as he shifts a little further onto the bed. 

His lips meet her forehead right as she closes her eyes.

 


	9. Chapter 9

_ And if your well is empty _

_ Not a thing will prevent me _

_ Tell me what you need  _

_ What do you need? _

 

They leave her childhood home after a rather awkward breakfast during which Betty barely speaks. Jughead gets the distinct impression that although when she was growing up she might’ve appeared to have been one quarter of an all-american family - the kind that sends those awful holiday cards he’s only ever seen in movies - things probably weren’t as they seemed.

Betty’s mom had laid out a spread of food on the dining room table to which they were supposed to help themselves. There had been a large stack of blueberry pancakes on a heavily-patterned china plate that he’d taken three of, but when he’d offered one to Betty, her mom’s nostrils had flared at the same time she’d pushed the bowl of fresh fruit towards her daughter.

Her eating habits, he’d realised in that moment, quite clearly stem from that house.

They’d climbed back into the Pontiac after both of Betty’s parents had hugged her goodbye and her mom had said (in what was quite clearly a warning tone)

“Not too long a break Elizabeth. People forget easily and modelling has a short window.”

Jughead had wanted to  _ forget _ all about Glen Helen and its naturally yellow spring - still does. He just wants to drive Betty somewhere that nobody’s cruel words can find her but instead, she has a vice-like grip on the passenger door handle and is giving him directions to the nature preserve.

“We don’t have to go; I can take pictures anywhere,” he says, but she’s insistent. 

“It’s really beautiful Jug,” she returns. “You should see it while you’re here.”

They park up and he opens his mouth to say her name in the way he hopes means  _ you didn’t deserve that, _ but at the same time she sucks in a breath and says, overly brightly,

“Come on.” 

They start towards the spring and when it’s quiet and there are no other people, Jughead tugs gently at her hand. “Hey.” 

She turns towards him at the fact that he’s stopped walking.

“I’m sorry it was like that with your mom.”

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. So quietly, in fact, that he barely hears her over the trees rustling in the breeze. 

He takes her in a hug then, because it’s  _ not  _ okay. It’s not okay and he won’t let her think that it is.

“It isn’t,” he murmurs into her hair. “It isn’t and I’m sorry your trip home was that.”

“It’s always been that,” she counters. “But still.... They’re my parents you know? It’s my home.”

Suddenly, his tiny trailer on Riverdale’s South Side doesn’t seem so bad a memory. There were so many arguments and so much fighting, but none of it involved him directly. 

“Do you want to go back?” he asks. “To New York I mean.”

He steps back despite the fact that he really,  _ really  _ doesn’t want to. He needs to see her face; needs to know her reaction to his question in order to know whether to ask the next one.

“No,” she says.

“What about here? Do you want to stay here?”

She doesn’t answer that one - just watches him, her eyes flickering across his face. 

“We can keep driving?” he offers. “If you want. There’s this wildflower meadow in South Carolina -”

“- You mean it?” she cuts in. “You’d keep driving?”

She’s no longer pressed against his chest but her hand is still in his and he squeezes lightly. “I’ve seen more of the country with you in the last few days than I’ve seen in my lifetime Betty, and I’d love to see more.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t grow up in the kind of family where we went on vacation,” he tells her by way of reply, and they start walking again. 

Betty leaves her hand in his and they take the trail that winds left. “You never went anywhere?”

“Not with my parents. They weren’t really… they didn’t…. Archie’s dad used to take him and me camping each summer to the lake the next town over. It seemed like such a big adventure when we were kids. We’d pitch the tent together and roll out the sleeping bags and then we’d get started on finding wood for the fire while Mr Andrews tidied everything away into the car.”

“That sounds great Jug,” she says somewhat wistfully, and then adds, “I’ve never been.”

“Camping?”

She shrugs. “It isn’t really my mom’s thing.”

He finds himself almost laughing at the thought of Alice Cooper in her pastel sweater and her high heels pitching a tent by Sweetwater River. 

“I’m picturing it too,” Betty says, nudging him gently and smiling at he glances down at her. “She hates dirt.”

“Figures,” Jughead replies, and squeezes her hand again. “You know what I never tried though?”

“What’s that?”

“S’mores.”

“Really? Aren’t they like, the essential camping snack?”

“Tell me about it!” he replies, getting slightly more animated than he’d intended. “Archie never liked graham crackers so we never bothered. We just roasted marshmallows on sticks his dad sharpened with his pen knife. I mean, they were still pretty tasty, but they weren’t s’mores ya know?”

There’s an idea forming in his head that he daren’t say aloud. The pictures are so vivid though: a tent pitched in front of a beautiful lake; him and Betty seated at a fire; him expertly roasting marshmallows so she can make the s’more sandwiches.

They carry on walking and Jughead stays quiet. 

Eventually, they reach the spring after which the town has been named. The sun is just starting to peek through the narrow gaps between the trees and there’s a thin slice of it cutting across the pool of water. In the golden hue, everything seems to match Betty’s hair, which today is pulled into a tight ponytail at the back of her head. 

He gets another idea and  _ this  _ time, he doesn’t keep it in.

“Hey Betts?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you do something for me?” he asks. “For a picture?”

“Of course,” she replies before he’s even told her what that something is. He wonders how many times she’s agreed to things without knowing what they entail; wonders if she’s simply accepted that she has to do things for other people in order to make it. 

“You don’t have to,” Jughead tells her. “But your hair matches the strip of sunlight there.”

She looks at the spring and then back at him, fingering the end of her ponytail somewhat absently. “What do you want me to do?”

“Drape it over the rock so that it falls into the water,” he chances. 

Betty nods. “Okay.”

He watches as she unwinds the elastic from behind her head before letting her hair skirt around her shoulders in its soft waves. It’s still holding the shape of the style it had been in though, and Jughead runs his fingers through it, gently pulling until it loses the kink from the elastic and his heart is hammering a little too quickly in his chest.

She smells like lavender.

It gives him second thoughts about asking her to dip her hair into the spring, but already she’s heading over to the rock where the surface is damp and dirty. 

“Hang on,” he says before she can lie down and ruin her clean sundress. 

Quickly, he unties the flannel from around his waist and spreads it out across where she’ll need to lay. 

“Your dress is too pretty to spoil,” he tells her when she blinks at him, and the edges of her lips soften into a smile. 

“You’re sweet,” she tells him. “Thank you.”

Jughead helps her lie down because the rocks are slippy and cold and the last thing he wants is for her to trip and hurt herself. He gathers her hair and smooths it out with his fingers, fanning the strands so that the ends are trailing in the water and the rock is hidden by a blonde waterfall. 

He takes a moment just to look at her lying there, eyes closed in the sunlight. There’s no way it’s a comfortable position but she looks serene all the same. 

He takes a picture of her - just because. 

To get the photograph of her hair he wants - the one he’d initially envisaged - he has to step into the water. He leaves his boots and socks off and rolls up the ends of his jeans so he doesn’t have to drive with soggy feet.  

The shutter clicks and the lense captures how stunning she is and Jughead forces himself not to reach out and touch her. He doesn’t even know which part of her he wants to stroke his fingers along, just knows that if he ever  _ does  _ get the chance to do so, he’ll do everything in his power to make her feel safe.

“Jug?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Where do you get your ideas?”

He snaps another picture because she’s angled her head ever-so-slightly towards the sun and it’s spilling across her eyes just right. 

“Sometimes I just see something I like,” he says. “Sometimes an image forms in my mind and I try to recreate it; sometimes it’s just a question of taking hundreds of shots until you like one enough.”

He helps her up, squeezing the water from her hair so it won’t wet the back of her dress. She takes it from him, her fingers brushing his and he wants to seal his hand around them. 

They’re long and thin - Betty’s fingers - elegant in a way that only women can be - and only certain women at that. They remind him of his mom’s (not that he has too much experience of how they felt against his own) in the way they clutch things tight enough that the ends turn white.

Betty’s sink into her palms; his mom’s used to grip his dad’s flannel when he was passed out on the couch and wouldn’t wake for work. 

(Jughead wonders, briefly, whether they grip anything in that way now that she’s in Toledo)    

They walk without any real purpose along the trail they’ve taken, and every-so-often there’s something that makes him stop to take a picture. None of them are portfolio-level (except, maybe the ones of Betty) but sometimes it’s just nice to have the memories of somewhere he’s been.

It’ll be nice to have the memories of somewhere he’s been with _ her, _ he thinks.

He checks, now and again, that she’s okay. It’s always without words: he’s conscious of the fact that he keeps asking and despite the answer always being  _ yes _ (or a synonym of some kind) the truth is an obvious  _ no. _

Betty’s dress is navy and patterned with tiny flowers - rosebuds, he concludes - and so it’d be difficult to tell if she was bleeding. Jughead figures by now though, he’s seen and heard enough that she’d probably tell him anyway if she needed to find a restroom, which is a rather sobering thought. 

“Where next?” Betty asks.

He hasn’t really thought any further ahead than here. Now that he knows she doesn’t want to go back to New York and she doesn’t want to stay in Yellow Springs either, he supposes they need some sort of plan. 

Or, maybe they don’t.

“What if we just decide when we get there?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Well what if we just head in a direction and take whichever road we want? We stop if somewhere looks nice; we keep driving if it doesn’t.”

Jughead can see her turning his words over in her head. Granted, he hasn’t known Betty that long, but he knows her well enough to understand that she’s a planner. Driving somewhere without an end destination would be hugely out of her comfort zone, and immediately he feels bad or even suggesting it.

But then - because she’s Betty Cooper and she’s the most wonderful enigma he’s come across - she says,

“A road trip adventure.”

He feels his mouth curving upwards before he can stop it. “Exactly.”

“Juggie,” she says, and his heart twists because  _ Juggie? _ He’s never wanted to hear someone repeat something they’ve just said before like he does now. She stops walking and so he does too, his palm twitching when she slips her fingers against it. “That sounds like exactly what I need.”

  
  
  
  
  


They stop at a gas station for a lunch of salad in a plastic box (Betty) and a club sandwich and Snickers (him) and then drive until the early evening where they pull over in Big Stone Gap, a little mountain town with plenty of trees and a river Jughead thinks would be a perfect photo opportunity were the sun to set over it in the next few hours.

They’ve somehow fallen into an unspoken pattern of taking-it-in-turns to pay for their accomodation, but he doesn’t think it’s quite fair. She shouldn’t really have to pay for any of it: he’s the one profiting from such a wide range of new photographic opportunities.  

The camp site they’ve reached is cheap and has a series of ready-pitched tents available for the evening. It’s not exactly _ true _ camping - Jughead has always figured that part of the experience is wrestling with tent poles for a good half hour before managing to put them through the correct parts of the material - but it’s as close as he can give her without finding a camping store and dropping $300 on a tent he might never use again.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright sleeping here?” he asks, meaning  _ wouldn’t you prefer somewhere with a private bathroom? _

“Isn’t this what a road trip’s about?” Betty asks. “Adventure?”

“Yes, but people don’t always camp only a little while after -” He manages to stop himself before his bout of verbal diarrhoea goes too far. When she glances down at the ground though, he figures the damage is always done. “Betty, I’m sorry; I didn’t think-”

“-S’okay,” she shrugs.

(Except it isn’t, and the whole reason he’d said it in the first place is because he’s  _ over _ thinking)

“We should find somewhere that sells ingredients for your s’mores right?” she says a little too brightly to mean it. “I saw a grocery store back on Main Street.” 

Because he doesn’t quite know where to go from here, he agrees quietly. “We’ll take the car.”

“It’s a nice night,” Betty counters. “We can always walk.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not bleeding much anymore,” she says bluntly. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Jughead opens his mouth but then realises he has no idea of what to say in response. After a moment, he takes her hand because that seems to be how they communicate lately - with their palms pressed together - and squeezes as gently as he can. 

They buy graham crackers and mini Hershey’s bars and those giant marshmallows he always wanted to try as a kid but never dared ask Archie’s dad (and certainly not his own) for. They also get burritos from a food truck parked down the street and eat them at a bench overlooking a park. 

Jughead manages his no problem, then takes over from Betty when she can’t manage more than a third of hers. He wonders whether she’s actually full, or if it’s simply a precaution against the s’more he hopes she’ll eat later. 

They walk back to the campsite as the sun sinks further towards the horizon and paints the sky in orange. 

  
  
  
  
  


He gets another idea for a photo when he emerges from the tent to see Betty sitting beside the spitting fire. She’s still wearing her sundress, but the clue that it’s gotten significantly cooler is the jacket pulled around her shoulders:  _ his _ jacket. 

Jughead is startled by the feeling that shocks through him at the sight. He thinks it might stem from feeling protective towards her, but for all intents and purposes, there’s a streak of possessiveness sitting in his chest that he’s never felt about anything - or anyone - before. Not even Jellybean.

His camera is around his neck - has been since they’d gotten back from Main Street - and he snaps a few pictures in quick succession. She turns at the sound of the final one, and he captures that too, and then another right after she pulls the edges of the jacket together and says,

“I was a little cold; I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” he tells her, and discovers that is voice is hoarse. He clears his throat. “The blankets they’ve supplied us with are pretty threadbare. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Betty sighs. “ _ Jughead _ .”

“I know,” he says by way of apology for his concern. “But we can still stay in a motel with an actual bed.” Maybe though, he realises suddenly, that’s part of the problem. “I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

She visibly softens at that, holding out her hand. He’s not sure whether he’s supposed to take it or just join her beside the fire (or take it  _ and _ join her beside the fire) but he opts for the second one. When she rests her head on his shoulder and says quietly,

“I feel comfortable with you. Always,” he reaches his palm across to her knee and gives it a gentle squeeze.

There are so many words he wants to say to her that he daren’t yet; that he knows are too early for her to hear, so he saves them somewhere in his mind for the day he can gather them together and spill them through the air. For now, he settles on,

“I’m glad we met, Betty.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long time - just sits with her head still on his shoulder until the flames of the fire have licked their way along the entirety of the log. Then, finally, she whispers,

“I don’t know where I’d be if we hadn’t.” 

  
  
  
  
  


The air grows colder. They’re pretty high up in the mountains and despite the army-issue sleeping bags (Jughead still isn’t quite sure how the campsite would have them) Betty’s teeth are chattering. 

She’s already wearing her leggings underneath her pajamas, and her upper-half is padded in the way that only comes from wearing lots of layers. On top of them all is his sherpa, but he figures her thin frame must feel every bit of the cold, and the only thing he’s got left to offer her is himself. 

“You’re freezing,” he says, hoping that she’ll initiate moving across the inch or two of space between their separate sleeping bags.

“I’m okay.”

She does, however, shuffle closer (close enough, in fact, to settle in at his side)  

“Jughead?” she asks, picking at the edge of the sleeping bag.

“Yeah?”

“Will you tell me something?”

“What do you want to know?” he questions, taking the opportunity to draw himself closer still so that her body is pressed up against his. 

“Anything,” she whispers. “Everything.”

“My birth certificate says Forsythe Pendleton Jones,” he murmurs, because if he’s going to tell her everything, then there’s no point not starting at the beginning. “I’m the third.”

Betty tilts her head so she’s looking up at him. “That’s... a lot.”

Her reaction makes him smile. “My dad insisted. They named my little sister Forsythia. We all call her Jellybean or JB.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, but her head is still tilted towards him. 

“I grew up on the South Side of Riverdale - the shitty side of an otherwise nice town. Somehow my dad got me into the good school on the North Side and I ended up doing okay I guess. I met Archie and even though I wasn’t cool and my mom never invited him over for dinner or anything, he didn’t seem to mind.” Jughead glances down at Betty and finds she’s still fiddling with the fraying edges of the sleeping bag. He doesn’t recall having heard her teeth chatter since he started talking.

“What about your sister?” she asks. “What’s she like?”

He exhales and closes his eyes briefly, trying to remember  _ exactly _ so he can give Betty the most vivid picture he can. “She always wore bright colours. She was unlike me in every way possible.”

“Was?” Betty questions tentatively.

“When I was thirteen, I guess my mom had finally had enough of my father’s drinking and the gang he ran with and the crappy trailer we lived in that leaked when it rained and froze when it was cold. She took Jellybean and left for Toledo, and I guess my dad kind of checked out at that point too.”

This time, when he chances a glance in her direction, he finds she’s no longer toying with the edges of her own sleeping bag: it’s  _ his _ she’s running her fingertips along. 

“I haven’t seen either of them since,” he adds, catching her fingers in his and holding them so they’ll be warm. “I don’t know what she’s like now.” He hopes she’s still the same as she was, but he doesn’t say this aloud.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers eventually.

“You don’t understand what?”

“How after all of that you can still be so _ good _ .” 

Jughead shrugs fractionally. “I saw what living with my dad was doing to my mom. She had her reasons I guess.”

“But…” she seems to pause, unsure of whether or not to continue. “But you were  _ thirteen _ Jug. Why didn’t she take you with her?”

It’s a question he’s asked silently again and again over the years, but one he’s been unable to find an answer to. “I don’t know,” he tells her - because it’s the truth. Given the choice of a life in Toledo or one on Riverdale’s South Side though, he maybe (probably) wouldn’t have left his father anyway: knowing he’d drink himself to death on that ratty trailer couch. There was Archie too, and the drive-in and the Bijoux and Pop’s. 

“There was enough keeping me there,” he adds, and she sighs out her response. 

“I’m sorry Juggie.”

There it is again.  _ Juggie. _ He swallows. “Don’t be.”

It’s quiet between them for a long time other than the odd rustling of their sleeping bags, until Betty whispers, “My mom used to be a beauty queen.”

He keeps his fingers sealed over hers, stroking lightly. 

“She won all of the local pageants when she was a teenager and was even crowned Miss Ohio. I think modelling would’ve been her dream-come-true.”

“What happened?”

“She had a meeting for some test shots with an agency - just a small one that probably doesn’t exist anymore - but a couple days before that, she found out she was pregnant with my sister.”

His eyes flick straight to Betty’s stomach despite the fact that it’s hidden by a sleeping bag and about six other layers of material, and he thinks,  _ history has a funny way of repeating itself. _ And then he thinks that maybe the word  _ funny _ should be replaced with  _ tragic. _

“My dad said she couldn’t go to Cincinnati and show off her body if she was pregnant. I guess she believed him.”

Jughead knows it should soften his feelings towards Betty’s mom a little, but he remembers too clearly her instructions the previous night; her relentless questioning of her daughter’s eating habits; her eyes narrowing when he’d offered her the pancake stack at breakfast. 

“She’s difficult sometimes,” she explains as she turns against his shoulder and lets her lips rest against the material of his sweater. “But she’s not a bad person.”

“I believe you,” he whispers against her forehead, and then, with little more than a brush of his lips, he presses a kiss to her forehead.

  
  
  
  
  


Betty’s phone rings as they’re driving along I-26. They’ve not long since passed the Cherokee National Forest and Jughead has been debating pulling over for some sort of snack for the past fifteen minutes. He doesn’t mean to look, but he sees Chic’s name on the screen, and then feels guilty when Betty catches him. 

She lets it ring for ten seconds or so, and then says, “I probably owe him an explanation.”

_ You don’t owe him anything,  _ Jughead thinks, but remains quiet on the subject. He can’t go anywhere so she can have some privacy to talk, but he concentrates really hard on the road and the other traffic as she presses her thumb against the screen.

“Hi,” she says quietly.   

For a while, she doesn’t say anything, He figures Chic is speaking (not that he hears him) but then, as he accerates past a truck throwing out all kinds of fumes, the voice on the other end of the line grows louder.

His eyes slide quickly to Betty, who’s gnawing on her bottom lip, and then back to the road ahead. 

“You need to come home, Betty!” he hears Chic demand. It’s verging on shouting, and he senses her flinch in her seat. Again, he reminds himself it’s not his business, and he steps a little harder on the gas. 

“I can’t, Chic.”

There’s a muffled noise that Jughead really hopes isn’t something being thrown or smashed and then Betty adds, very _ very  _ quietly, “I don’t want to.”

Something blooms in his chest. He wants it to be hope - hope that she understands she’s so much more important than she’s thought for so long that she is; hope that she understands how much she’s worth. 

Chic is very obviously saying something else - more quietly this time - and Betty is shaking her head. She sniffs and Jughead realises she’s crying. It makes him simultaneously angry and sad for her.

“I’m sorry,” she says over the line. 

The call ends, and shakily, she lets out a breath. From the corner of his eye, Jughead can see her nails closing in on her palms, and so he takes the upcoming exit, driving the short distance along the road until there’s a spot in which he can pull over.

He’s not sure whether Betty has noticed their slight detour, or that they’ve come to a stop, but her eyes are unblinking. 

“Hey,” he says as gently as he can, attempting to slide his fingers between her nails and her palms. She snatches them away, pressing both against her thighs.

“I don’t know what I’m doing Jug,” she chokes. “Out here with you when I should be back in New York.”

This is what he was afraid of: her realising this trip was a mistake; that being with  _ him _ is a mistake. And he wants to comfort her - more than anything. Wants to slide across the stick shift and pull her into his arms so he can admit that he, too, doesn’t really know what they’re doing.

But whatever it is, he wants to  _ keep _ doing it - that’s the problem. 

Betty releases her seatbelt and climbs out of the car, her hands resting on her hips as she faces away from him and out towards the river. Her head is bowed so he knows she’s crying, and it’s near torture having to give her the space he knows she wants. 

When ten minutes have passed, and he’s waited as long as he can, Jughead climbs out too, closing the door of the Pontiac quietly so as not to make her jump. 

“Betty?” he asks softly as he reaches her. “If you want to go back, we can.”

She turns her head in his direction and blinks a few times before she answers. “That’s it... I… I don’t think I  _ want _ to go back.” Her words are quiet in the late morning air, almost like it’s a crime to admit them aloud.  

He lets his building sigh out slowly. “You’re allowed to make your own decision, Betts. And whatever it is, I support you.”

It’s her who initiates the hug, stepping towards him and wrapping her arms around his back, her palms rubbing up and down slowly either side of his spine. He folds his arms around her too, kneading gently at her shoulders as she rests her head against his chest. 

He’s not really sure how long they stay in that embrace but it’s long enough that he can feel the press of each of her fingers against his t-shirt; long enough that the scent of her shampoo is in his nose; long enough too, that his chest is warm where she’s letting out hot bursts of breath.

It’s not long enough for him to be ready to let her go. 

But let her go he does - partially at least - when she pulls back and tries to smile. 

“I don’t want you to apologise,” he tells her. “Before you think you should.”

  
  
  
  
  


Eventually, they get back into the car and Jughead drives along the main street until they reach a tiny bakery. 

Just before they get out again at the parking lot, Betty takes his hand, rubbing her thumb over the skin. 

“Your mom missed out,” she says. “On knowing you.”

His throat is dry and it seems to take an awfully long time before he can see clearly. Betty squeezes his hand again.

“But I’m so glad I didn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took some inspiration from Sprousehart...don't sue me ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely comments. I very much appreciate and am motivated by them. Hope you enjoy this one :) x

_Take the weight off my shoulders_

_Say I won't make the same mistakes when we're older_

_'Cause with every step you take, I'm getting colder_

_So come a little closer_

 

Kiawah island is beautiful. It’s that stereotypical kind of beautiful that almost makes Betty cringe: outwardly so perfect in a way that she thinks must be hiding something. She’s met many beautiful people and seen many beautiful places in the short span of her career so far, and she can’t recall a single one who hasn’t had something ugly buried not too far from the surface.

Mexico has the drug cartels. The glamorous world of modelling has the dark and dingy stairwells where you have to wait in line to step out onto the stage. Chic… well, she tries not to think about that. And this place? Maybe there’s a seedy golfing underworld nobody knows about.

Perhaps it’s cynical - this line of thought - but she hasn’t seen anything that’s beautiful all the way through to the core. But then her gaze drifts to the right of her and she catches Jughead’s eye, and thinks - just maybe - _he_ might be the exception.  

They’re here because Jughead had kept driving towards the coast after her phone call with Chic, and this was the last place they could possibly stop. It’s early evening and despite the cooling breeze drifting up from the ocean, she’s still warm. It might have something to do with Jughead’s hand clasped around hers, his thumb lightly stroking over her skin in such a way that she’s not entirely sure whether he’s even conscious that he’s doing it.  

“How about over there?” Betty asks him, pointing with her free hand towards a path of sand snaking through the tall grass. The light isn’t right for anything good tonight - she’s learned that already - but Jughead humours her by saying,

“Let’s go take a look.”

They can’t stay here tonight - or, they _can,_ but it’s far too expensive: all golf resorts and country club-style accommodation on the island itself, but they’d passed a couple of cheap motels on the Savannah Highway that looked decent enough. He’d mentioned something along the way about capturing the sunrise on the very edge of the east coast to see how different it is to the one they witness in New York, and what had initially begun as a casual stroll along the bluff to scope out potential locations has now turned into something Betty doesn’t want to end just yet.

There’s a peace about the ocean that, not so long ago, would have made her avoid somewhere like this. It’s all too easy without the distractions of the city to tune into what’s going on in her head, but with Jughead’s fingers entwined with hers, the peace is finally a good thing.

The sand is cool beneath her feet and she watches the seabirds bob along with the gentle waves as the breeze picks up the hem of her dress so that it brushes against the backs of her knees.

She’s almost out of clean clothes (and Jughead is _definitely_ out of them) given that initially, she’d only packed for a day or two away from the city. Luckily enough - for her at least - she’d still had some old items from high school in her closet back in Yellow Spring: the dress she’s currently wearing; the navy one with the tiny rosebuds she’d had on yesterday; the pale blue one with little ruffles on the shoulders she’d once bought for a summer party Kevin had insisted she go with him to that’s still in her bag in the trunk.   

She figures they’re going to have to buy a couple more outfits each (that, or find a place they can do laundry) so that they don’t gross each other out in the close confines of the Pontiac.

They reach the spot where the path weaves its way through the grass and Jughead stops walking. Betty stops too, wiggling her toes in the sand as she watches him examine the photographic potential of the place.

“Maybe for tomorrow?” she asks. “If it’s clear when the sun rises?”

He lets go of her hand and doesn’t answer for a few moments, lifting his camera in front of her face without pressing the shutter button before lowering it again.

“Maybe,” he murmurs, and then tugs gently on her hand so she’s angled a little closer to the grass. “Or maybe…” He lifts the camera back to his face and toys with the lens a while until he’s satisfied. Betty looks down and fingers the fluffy head of a stem as Jughead snaps a couple shots and then comes so close that she can hear his breaths even above the tumbling of the waves.

“Will you hold your palm out?” he asks.

She does and then watches as he nips a couple stems of grass so that they bend almost at a ninety degree angle. It surprises her - not that she’ll say anything right now - that he’s altered the reality of the shot, and she makes a decision to ask him about it later.

The fluffy grass heads tickle her skin as the breeze catches and ruffles them, but she tries not to twitch - that is, until the the four red crescent moon scars are revealed. Betty sucks in a breath,

“Jug.”

“Yeah?” he voice is soft and so are his eyes when he looks at her. It’s almost as though he doesn’t know what she’s referencing, but she doesn’t believe he can be that blind - not as a photographer.

“My… you can see it.”

 _It._ My mess.

 _“Betts.”_ She wishes he wouldn’t say her name like that sometimes. It does things inside of her chest that she’s not prepared for; makes her feel a certain type of way she can’t name (and isn’t sure she even wants to)

“You can’t want a picture of this,” she tells him, hands curling in so that the stems of grass now hang limp and dejected without a purpose.

He lets go of his camera to take her hands in his, stroking along the skin with worrying deftness until her fingers are pliable enough that he can straighten them out. He keeps his palms resting over hers - just lightly, so they’re not pressing down - and then says,

“I do. But I won’t take one if you’re not comfortable.”

His words give her pause to think. The peace gives her pause to think. And, inevitably, her mind goes instantly to that place she doesn’t want it to (but it’s futile to try to prevent it from happening)

Betty knows what she’s getting from this trip: the time away from the city, from Chic, from the job she’s never really enjoyed, from her bed and it’s memories of what happened in it, from being pregnant, from suddenly _not_ being pregnant. But Jughead? She has no idea what _he’s_ getting out of it.  

She’s heard about the types of relationships that artists - photographers - can sometimes develop with an individual that others (or even themselves) might describe as a muse. It’s not like _that’s_ what she thinks she is, and he’s been nothing but completely wonderful, but she also knows she needs to give him something in return.

With that in mind, she takes a deep breath and uncurls her hands. “Sorry,” she apologises. “You can take the picture.”

Jughead doesn’t lift his camera like she expects. Instead, he lets out a long breath - almost a sigh - and take her hands back in his, cupping them gently.

“That’s not how this works Betty,” he tells her softly. “I don’t get to take pictures of you that you’re not comfortable with.”

But he’d _wanted_ the picture, she knows, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked - and she desperately wants to give him something in return for everything he’s done. So, she does the only other thing she can think of.

She kisses him.

He’s unprepared, judging by the way he doesn’t open his own lips to kiss her back, and Betty presses her mouth with just enough pressure that she knows how soft his lips feel against hers; knows he tastes slightly of the barbeque pulled pork sandwich he ate earlier.

When he pulls back, she sees that Jughead’s eyes aren’t closed, but open. Blinking in confusion at her.

“What was that for?” His voice is a little raspy - maybe hoarse, even. Her heart is beating faster than she thinks it should be, and she really doesn’t know how to answer his question.

In the end, she pulls her hands out of his grasp and opens her palm flat, moving it back to where the bent stems of grass are still drooping. The heads rest against her skin, only half hiding the red marks, and she says, quietly,

“Take the photo Jughead.”

He does.    

  
  
  


The motel back on the Savannah Highway isn’t as seedy inside as it initially looks on the outside. The man behind the desk at reception casts his eyes over her for a while in that way people do when they think they recognise her, and Jughead steps so that he’s almost fully in front of her, effectively blocking the view.

They haven’t discussed how long they intend to stay, but when the man asks for how many nights they’d like a room, she’s somewhat surprised to hear Jughead say,

“Two.”

“Double or twin?”

He turns to look at her, obviously not wanting to presume anything given that this is the first time they’ve had a choice regarding the type of bed in their room. There’s a part of her that wants to say double, knowing that at some point, he’ll wrap his arms around her and stroke his fingers up and down in that calming way he does, but the other part of her - the rational, sensible _Elizabeth Cooper_ part voices,

“Twin,” because the last thing they need is the man behind the counter working out who she is and then news spreading across social media that Betty Cooper is staying in Motel 6 with the photographer she’s run away with.

That isn’t the real story of course, but there’s some truth in it at least, and _National Enquirer_ has never been particularly preoccupied with the real story anyway.  

“Twin,” Jughead confirms to the man behind the counter, who them hands them a key.

“Number fourteen,” he tells them. “Top floor.”

“What about wifi?” Jughead asks, surprising her.

“You’ll find the code in your room. Make sure to add the numbers one and four after it.”

They leave the reception and head back outside to gather their things from the trunk of the car. Betty wants to justify the choice of a single room but can’t find the right words with which to do so, and she ends up asking instead,

“You’re missing the internet?”

“No,” he replies with something of a slight chuckle. “There are some pictures I need to post - things I need to update my online portfolio with.”

Of course, she realises stupidly, just because _she_ gets to run away from work doesn’t mean he does.  

“What are you getting out of this trip, Jughead?” she asks before she can stop herself.

He blinks a couple of times and then hands over her bag before tossing his over his shoulder so he can close the trunk. “What do you mean?”

On the highway above, the traffic roars past and Betty has to raise her voice so he can hear her. “Why did you bring me here?”

“To South Carolina?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “To all the places we’ve been. All the places we’re going to go.”

He blinks again. “I don’t understand the question, Betty.”

More traffic roars overhead and he guides her back towards the motel. She doesn’t say anything until they close the door behind them, but then, once she’s set her bag on the bed furthest from the door, she starts again.

“For me, it’s an escape - driving as far away from New York as I can think of. _I_ was the one who said I didn’t want to go back. _I_ was the one who wanted to go to Yellow Springs. And then _I_ was the one who didn’t want to stay there. You just agreed. You agreed to it all. It’s like you’re babysitting right?” she asks, trying to force the cracks out of her voice. “Watching me all the time. Waiting for me to hurt myself?”

“It’s not like that Betty,” he says, but she shakes her head because that’s _exactly_ what it is.

“I’m trying to work out what you want from me.”

“I don’t want _anything_ from you,” he insists, but there isn’t a possibility that’s true. “I just…” he pauses to scrub his hand across his face, and _finally,_ Betty thinks. _Finally_ he’s going to admit it.

“What?” she urges.

“Maybe I could’ve stopped my mom from leaving - by helping my dad. Or… maybe if I’d listened better, she could’ve talked to me; told me the extent of it - about what she and my dad fought about so much. I didn’t help her.” His voice is almost inaudible when he says, “Maybe I can help _you._ ”

His words hurt in such a way that she has no idea what it means. She doesn’t blame him - not in the slightest (and even if she _did,_ she’d have no right to) but her chest feels tight and her eyes feel heavy and her tongue feels clumsy in her mouth.

“I don’t want to be your fix-it project,” she just about manages to tell him before heading outside.

The evening air is thick and heavy in the way it is when there’s a thunderstorm not far off. The traffic is still whizzing past on the highway overhead and Betty walks the length of the outdoor hallway until she reaches the stairs that lead down to the parking lot.

She doesn’t know where she’s going, but she knows she needs some time to think away from that tiny room with its twin beds and Jughead’s presence. The kiss she’d given him earlier is still replaying in her mind, as are all of the kisses he’s given her - different, of course, to the one on the bluff. She tries to recall the exact moments before: what she’d said; how he’d looked at her; why he’d given them. If they’d been attempts to comfort her then they’d worked, just like the way he places his hand against hers and the way he rubs her back when he gives a hug.

His goal of helping her _has_ worked, she figures, at least in part. She’s been able to realise how much she doesn’t enjoy her job and how afraid of Chic she’s been for longer than she can really recall. But now she’s reliant on _him_ \- just like she’d been on Chic in some ways, and like she is on her agency - and it’s terrifying. There are other terrifying things about her relationship with Jughead too - like the way she _wants_ him to hold her, and the fact that when his fingers are joined with hers, the voices in her head aren’t quite so loud and competitive, and the way she feels a little light-headed when he shortens her name to _Betts._

A loud crack reverberates above her and only then does Betty realise it’s raining. Her arms and legs and feet are wet - as is the material of her dress - and she wonders for how long the drops have been falling without her having realised. She looks back towards the motel, blinking against the rain that lands on her eyelids and sees the dark figure of a man on the top floor hallway. Straight away she recognises him as Jughead, and the fact that suddenly, she wants to run to him, frightens her too.  

She _does_ run when a fork of lightning spears the sky and lights up the whole parking lot which has grown close to inky-black while she’s been out there. Betty has no idea how long she’s been outside and if the waning light is due to the storm or the time, but it’s a relief when she reaches the bottom of the stairs and Jughead is still there. He’s holding a towel she assumes must be from the bathroom, and he meets her at the top of the stairs, holding it out so she can take it.

Instead, she steps close enough to his chest that the only thing he can do is wrap the towel around her, and then, overwhelmed, she breaks into sobs.  _I’m sorry,_ she wants to say. _I’m sorry for not being someone you can fix; I’m sorry for not giving you enough in return for what you’ve given me; I’m sorry you saw me lose my baby; I’m sorry for not picking a double room when I had the choice; I’m sorry for kissing you; I’m sorry for not kissing you_ properly.

Not one of those words leave her mouth and only vaguely, when she realises she can no longer hear the sound of the rain quite so loudly, does she register that they’ve moved inside.

“Betts, you’re freezing,” he’s telling her after something else she’s just missed, rubbing his hands up and down over the towel so it’ll catch the droplets and warm her quickly. She realises then, that maybe it doesn’t matter why he’s here or why he’s doing this. Maybe, the fact that he’s even willing to do it at all is enough.

It makes her cry all over again - fresh sobs tumbling from her mouth against the now damp material of his t-shirt.

“It’s okay,” he shushes, moving one of his hands to stroke her hair. “It’s okay.”

It isn’t.

Her hands are trapped by the towel so she can’t clutch at him the way her fingers seem desperate to, and so she curls her fingers in - not hard enough to break the skin, but with enough pressure that it calms her breathing. Jughead holds her all the while, exhaling into her hair and resting his lips against her crown. He’s warm and safe and his heart is thumping beneath her ear, but with great effort Betty manages to pull back so he can release her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, wiping at her eyes and finding the skin below them unsurprisingly puffy.

“ _I’m_ sorry,” he counters. “For implying… You’re not _broken_ Betty; I’m not trying to fix you.” He sighs and catches a rogue tear that slips down her cheek with the pad of his thumb. It’s rough and smooth at the same time and she closes her eyes against the feel of his skin against hers.

But she is, she thinks, in some ways. She _is_ broken.

“Can we just agree,” Jughead begins, leaving his hand where it is on her face, stroking softly. “That we’re both here because we want to be?”

She nods and offers a grateful smile, folding her fingers around his wrist and pressing her thumb lightly against his pulsepoint. “I should probably take a shower.”

His eyes fix on a spot above hers - her forehead, she thinks - and for a moment she expects him to dust a kiss there like he has in the past. Maybe though, after what she’s just said and done, he decides against it. There’s a resulting feeling in her chest that she thinks might be disappointment.  

  
  
  


When she opens the bathroom door after a searingly hot shower, now redressed in a pair of pajamas consisting of her old gym t-shirt and shorts patterned with navy stars, Jughead is settled in his bed beneath the sheet, laptop balanced on his lap.

“What are you working on?” she asks.

“I’m just editing the photos from the past couple days,” he tells her. “Do you want to see?”

Betty nods and rather than have Jughead pass her his laptop, she crosses the short distance to his bed and perches on the edge. The mattress is narrow but it doesn’t stop him from scooting over until he’s practically pressed up against the wall so there’s more space for her, and, rather than question it, she slips under the sheet too.

She’s surprised, when their knees touch, to discover that Jughead isn’t wearing his pajama pants, but rather, just his boxers. At first, he keep his arms firmly by his sides which - thanks to the lack of space - is pretty restrictive in terms of navigating the album he’s working on. In the end though, he lifts his left arm so that it rests on the edge of the headboard, and then, when she inches closer still so that she’s almost tucked into his left side, he closes his arm around her shoulder.

“This one,” he tells her, bringing up a picture he’d taken as she’d been warming herself by the campfire back in Big Stone Gap, “Is orange.”

“Orange?”

“Yeah, uh…” he rubs at the back of his neck with his right hand. “I don’t know if you remember when we were in Fort Tryon Park you said we could do the whole rainbow.”

For a moment, she isn’t sure what to say, and Jughead quickly tries to give her an out - because _of course_ he does.  

“Maybe you were just joking or I misinterpreted or…”

Gently, she places a hand on his arm. “I wasn’t joking. You didn’t get it wrong.”  

“Oh.” She hears him swallow, and then he clicks on the next picture in the album. “This is yellow.”

It’s the picture of her at Glen Helen with her hair draped over the rock in the sunlight, and she has to admit, it’s an impressive shot. “What about green?” she asks. “Any ideas?”

Jughead seems to look at her for a long time before answering. “A few.”

He squeezes her shoulder lightly and then excuses himself to the bathroom so he can brush his teeth, and she hits the back arrow on his editing program. There are many folders and she spots the shot she assumes must’ve been the one he took earlier while they were at the bluff. Betty double clicks and as she’d expected, the image of the Atlantic Ocean appears on the laptop’s screen. She studies it for a moment, admiring the almost-silver stillness of the water before moving to the next picture. It’s of her palm with the grass heads and she quickly moves on again, not caring to look at the contrast of the light-coloured grass and the dark red of her scars.

The next one is of her again - but not one she can remember him having taken. She guesses it was when they’d first reached the bluff and she’d run a little way ahead, excited to sink her bare feet into the sand. Her back is to him and her sandals are dangling from her hand, and even though she can’t see her face, she knows she looks happy.

There are a couple of pictures of the beautiful mountains surrounding Big Stone Gap - one in particular that she thinks Jughead should add to his portfolio - and then it’s her again: a close up of her face angled slightly away from him, a ray of sunset orange-pink crossing her lips. She remembers hearing the shutter, but had assumed his focus was the sunset over the campfire as opposed to her.     

There are more too - interspersed between images of the trees and shrubs of Glen Helen - and she’s lingering on one of her outstretched finger pointing at something out of view when Jughead appears in the doorway of the bathroom. Betty goes back to the photograph of her by the campfire and says,

“I didn’t know you were taking this.”

He closes the short distance between them so he can see the image she’s referring to. He doesn’t say anything; just watches her. She goes next to a different picture of her, and then another, and then another.

“What _are_ these Jughead?” she asks.

His eyes seem bluer than usual. “They’re your pictures.”

She shakes her head. “No. What _are_ these?” She asks it quieter this time, altering the meaning without changing any of her words.

His exhale is long and slow, and the mattress dips as he seats himself on the edge. “Occasionally, I see it. It’s not there for long and maybe I shouldn’t have intruded, but I wanted to capture it to show you sometime.”

“Show me what?”

“How beautiful you are when you’re at peace. When I figure everything in your mind is calm.”

Carefully, she closes the laptop and sets it on the single table that separates their twin beds so that her hands are free. She scoots over despite the fact that it’s Jughead’s bed rather than hers, and chokes out,

“I feel something for you and I don’t know if it’s because of what you’ve done for me or if it’s because I’d feel it anyway if things had been different with… I don’t know… _everything,_ I guess, but -”

She presses her lips to his for the second time that day, a little less tentative; a little more assured, and this time, he kisses her back. His right hand comes to rest against her face so that his fingers are simultaneously stroking her cheek, neck and shell of her ear and... oh. _Oh,_ she realises. _This_ is what it’s like to be kissed by him.

When their lips break at the same time a boom of thunder echoes across the landscape outside, Betty opens her eyes and finds Jughead still with his closed. She waits the few seconds for them to open and then he says gently, in reference to what she’s just told him,

“Maybe we should wait until you’re sure which it is.”

It’s a sensible suggestion and so she wraps her arm around his chest, relishing in the feeling of him pulling her closer as he sinks down until his head is resting against the pillow. Her fingers curl around his arm and her toes press against his ankles and she whispers into the material of his t-shirt,

“Okay.”

  
  
  


The following morning, Betty is the first to wake. It’s still early and she listens outside to the traffic on the highway and the stillness of the weather before her ears tune in to Jughead’s peaceful breaths. She can feel them too against her neck, thanks to the way they’re pressed together on the narrow twin bed, but they’re warm and so rhythmic that she figures they could lull her back to sleep if she let them.

It’s tempting: despite the lack of space, she’s so damn comfortable. But Jughead had wanted the sunrise pictures and it’s only fair, she decides, that she makes sure he gets them.

“Jug,” she whispers, rubbing his forearm when he doesn’t rouse. “Jug, wake up.”

He does so with a sort-of cross between a mumble and a groan, stretching his limbs out so they’re no longer entwined with hers.

“You okay?” he asks as his eyes blink open, heavy with sleep.

“It’s almost time for sunrise. I didn’t think you’d want to miss it.”

He groans and it makes her smile as his thumb catches the bare skin of her hip, just beneath her t-shirt. “It’s got some competition.”

Betty’s smile widens before she can stop it, and she ducks her head. “C’mon,” she coaxes, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I bet the storm washed up a whole host of things on the sand.”

They reach the bluff by five-fifteen and are in position to see the rays begin spilling their light across the ocean. Her prediction was accurate: there are several large logs languishing on the shoreline, joined by clumps of seaweed and a few glass bottles too.

“Do you want me to move them?” she asks Jughead. “So they won’t spoil the shot?”

“No.” He slides his fingers down her arm until they reach her wrist and his thumb strokes her pulsepoint. “Leave them. I kind of like how it looks.”

He lets go so he can lift his camera and adjust the lens. His shutter clicks in rapid succession and Betty steps a little further away so she can watch him. His jaw muscles tense and relax as he takes different shots, and she pulls her phone from the back pocket of her jeans so she can capture him.

There are a ridiculous amount of Instagram and email notifications, unread text messages and voicemails she hasn’t listened to, and she knows she’ll have to make a start on them soon.

But not just yet.

She takes a picture where Jughead is standing to the left of the frame and the ocean fills up the rest. His camera is obscuring most of his face, but from the angle she’s at, she can see the three moles that almost form a triangle on his cheek. He looks so intense.

The shot is good and she locks her screen, slipping the phone back into her pocket so she can watch him work.

  
  
  


They’re both hungry by the time he’s done. There are a number of diners close to the motel and as much as they’re places she doesn’t really want to eat at, Betty knows how partial to burgers and pancakes Jughead is, and the look in his eyes when she suggests they try The Early Bird Diner is reward enough.

He takes the lead, entering first and letting her walk close behind him until they reach a booth at the back. She watches him open the menu, his eyes widening soon after before he shuts it excitedly.

“You know what you’re having already?”

“Betts, they do chicken and waffles. Chicken and _waffles!_ I don’t need to read any further.”

Her smile spreads and she wants to do something. Laugh or hug him or… or _kiss him,_ she realises. His eyes are shining and he looks younger than he usually does.

“Well hello there folks,” their server announces warmly, holding up a pot of coffee. “How’re ya’ll fixed for the good stuff?”

“We could use some,” Jughead tells her, and his eyes flicker like they’re talking; like they’re saying, _we were out on the bluff early this morning and we’re still tired._

The waitress turns over their cups and pours a healthy dose of coffee into each before almost gasping when she takes note of Betty. “Oh my stars! You’re Betty Cooper!” Her voice is low enough that it doesn’t attract any real attention, but it makes Betty uncomfortable all the same. “Darlin’ you’re even more beautiful in real life than when I’ve seen you in those magazines.”

Beneath the table, she feels Jughead’s foot nudge hers. She glances at his face and finds his eyes are talking again. This time, they ask if she’s okay. She nods and smiles, nudging his foot back as a thank you.

“That’s kind of you to say,” she says.

“Aint nothin’ kind about it honey. I’m just tellin’ the truth. You want more time to decide on your food?”

“I think we’re good,” she replies despite the fact she hasn’t even opened her menu. “Can you do poached eggs?”

“Of course,” says the waitress. “What’ll you have on the side? We can do biscuits - the proper southern kind - or texas toast, fried potatoes, grits, cheese grits…”

“Avocado?” she chances.

The waitress smiles. “You bet. And for you sir?” she asks Jughead, who promptly reels off his pecan-crusted fried chicken and waffles order. She leaves them to it, but not before saying,

“Your eyes are happy Ms Cooper. That ol’ boyfriend of yours sure might’ve been pretty, but pretty don’t amount to a hill of beans if he aint makin’ your eyes shine.”

The past tense tells Betty that the media have got wind of her and Chic’s break-up, but rather than scroll through any and every article she can find on her phone, she takes a deep breath and asks Jughead,

“Where are we going next?”

“Shopping.”

She frowns at his answer. “What?”

“I could use a new shirt,” he replies. “Some underwear. Maybe some swim shorts. And uh… I’ve had an idea - for a shoot.”

She tilts her head as she sips at her coffee.

“You’ll need a long dress.”

  
  
  


Their trip to Charleston starts out relatively quietly. They visit a couple of stores and pick up what they need for the warmer weather the south offers, and then - because the whole place is so pretty - they decide to explore.

It’s s they’re wandering without any real intent that it happens: someone across the street screams,

“Betty Cooper!” and heads turn.

Jughead doesn’t say anything, but his lips twitch a couple times and she can tell he wants to ask if she’s okay.

“It’s fine,” she says, and raises her hand in a small wave she hopes will be enough of an acknowledgement. Inevitably, it isn’t.

Two young women - perhaps still in high school - cross the street to get to her, their phones out and already taking pictures or videoing. Jughead makes to step in front of her but she places a hand on his arm to stop him.

“It’s okay Jug,” she tells him again, rubbing lightly before dropping her hand again.

“You’re so pretty!” one of the women says. “Can we get a picture?”

Jughead ends up being the one to take it, grimacing as he does so, but it’s a quick fix in satisfying the duo who thank her and then cross back over the street again. Unfortunately though, it’s only the first of a number of interactions which has them heading back to the Pontiac.

On the way, they pass a narrow walkway framed with huge trees laden with vibrant green leaves, and Jughead stops, toying with his camera strap.

“What is it?” she asks.

“I could photograph you here,” he tells her. “At night, when it’s quiet. Just us.”

He looks so earnest, like it’s something he really wants to do, and Betty wants to give it to him. “We’ll come back,” she promises. “Later.”

She can hear her phone’s notifications and, as if he can sense her increasing heart rate, Jughead takes her hand. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

She steps a little closer and nods. “Okay.”

  
  
  


They drive on the 61 and then make a series of turns until Jughead is navigating the twists of the dry country road. He’s following directions on his phone to a wildflower meadow around forty minutes from the city and finally, they see a line of orange come into view.

They park up at the edge of the meadow and step out into the heat. There’s a warm wind blowing the heads of the orange poppies so they dance, and as Betty walks further into the meadow, it picks up the material of her dress too so that it blooms behind her.

They head almost to the centre of the field so they’re surrounded on all sides by flowers, the hills filling out the backdrop, before Jughead announces,

“Here.”

She waits for him to play around with the shot, testing different angles and focuses until he’s satisfied. Her black dress is light and gentle against her skin as it billows around her legs in the wind.    

“Can you tilt your head back?” Jughead asks. “Just a little?”

She does as he asks and hears the shutter snap several times. She bends and arches her back and fingers the delicate petals of the poppies as the sun burns overhead and Jughead takes shot after shot after shot until finally, he asks if she might lie down and close her eyes.

Again, she follows his request and listens for the click of the shutter. When it doesn’t come, Betty opens her eyes, lifting her head a fraction to look at him.

“Is there something wrong?”

He shakes his head, lowering the camera. “I wish you could see how beautiful you look Betty.”

Her throat is tight and her pulse seems to thump in her ears as she looks at him, the sunlight blocked by his body so there’s something of a golden aura around his face. _He’s_ beautiful, she thinks, with his dark hair and olive skin and kind blue eyes. _So_ beautiful.  

“It’s you,” she whispers. “The reason I feel like this.”

Jughead crouches, no longer steering the sun away from her face and she leans up on her elbows.

 _“Betts.”_ He swallows. “You don’t have to have it figured out yet.”

“But I have,” she says. “And it’s all you.”

He sits beside her, watching her face like he doesn’t believe what she’s just told him. But then, in little more than a whisper, he asks,

“Can I kiss you?”

Betty nods and her heart rate ramps up even further as he strokes the pads of his thumbs across her jaw, leaving it slack as his fingertips brush her neck. He leans in slowly, and she watches him right until the moment his lips land on hers. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your response to the previous chapter. You guys truly are lovely x

_ Come closer, we’re alone (and it chills me to the bone) _

_ I wish that I'd been there to care and carry you (carry you home) _

_ You're not the only one isolated and undone _

_ So many miles to go _

_ Well I know.  _

_ I know. _

 

Kissing Betty Cooper - having Betty Cooper kiss  _ him _ \- is like nothing Jughead has experienced before. She’s soft in every way imaginable: her lips, her hair, her skin - even her eyes when she blinks them open lazily to look at him when they break for breath, and he has no idea how he’s _ not  _ supposed to kiss her now that he knows what it feels like. 

Somehow, they make a decision to leave the meadow (although not before he gets his picture of her lying down surrounded by poppies, eyes closed against the sun and the wind) and she slides into the passenger seat of Archie’s Pontiac as he packs his camera away. 

They ride back to the motel in comfortable quiet, with the fingers of Betty’s left hand resting over his, and those of her right scrolling on her phone. He hasn’t told her that he’s been keeping an eye on her Instagram tag (a quick check now and again when she’s in the bathroom) and he’s not sure whether he plans to either. Another thing he hasn’t told her about are the pictures of Chic partying back in New York, various girls on his arm, and the accompanying headlines about the ‘modelling  _ ‘it’ _ couple’s breakup’. 

“You posted,” she says quietly, tilting her head to look at him as she rests her right cheek against the window. She’s referring to the picture of her hair that he took in Glen Helen. Already, it has over a hundred-thousand likes and a whole host of comments, many of which mention her. His caption is, simply,  _ Yellow. _

The picture sits in the middle of his row of three, bookended by a picture of the trail they took and the yellow spring water. Perhaps he should’ve asked her permission first, but he wasn’t too sure what her answer might’ve been - and he didn’t want to take the chance that she’d say no. The thing is, although he knows she’s running, hiding (whatever the right word is) from everything her life was back in New York, he doesn’t want her to discard her options because she was in need of a break. Maybe, he thinks, in the future - with less suffocating thoughts - she might decide she isn’t done with modelling just yet. 

Jughead remembers their conversation in the little coffee shop in East Harlem: her telling him she’s a  _ model-of-the-moment _ as opposed to a  _ supermodel. _ If and when Betty decides she wants to go back to New York, he doesn’t want her not to be relevant anymore. He thinks that if anyone should be able to choose whether or not she features in a promotion or a show, it should be  _ her. _ Nobody else. 

“I like the photos either side,” she tells him. “I like your framing.”

“You’re okay with it?” he asks, glancing away from the road and towards her. She looks back at her phone for a moment, takes her lower lip between her teeth and then says,

“Of course. I like it when you photograph me, Jug.”

“Well,” he says, heat blooming in his cheeks when she smiles at him. “I like it when I photograph you too.”

  
  
  
  
  


At the motel, Jughead looks over the few pictures he’d gotten from downtown Charleston while Betty showers. They’d decided that eating somewhere other than one of the nearby diners might be nice, and really, he’s just so happy that she’s finally eating three meals a day (although granted, some of them  _ are _ just salads and/or completely free from carbohydrates) that he’ll agree to  _ anything _ concerning her food preferences right now. 

Of course, this doesn’t prevent him from doing some research. He opens his laptop and connects his camera to it through the cord so he has all of the pictures he took of Betty in the poppy meadow safely backed up by the cloud, and while they’re transporting, he sets about googling somewhere to eat later that evening. 

The first place that catches his eye is a tiny white building with large black window frames and a palm tree standing guard out front. Further inspection reveals it to serve a variety of french food, and he’s all ready to suggest it to Betty when the next sentence informs him that ‘the shotgun space is filled with several well-worn counters, so be ready to cozy up next to fellow diners.’

Not at all, he decides, a place that Betty would enjoy.

Jughead continues his search until he reaches some information about an Italian place serving both large platters and smaller starter-sized plates. He’s witnessed Betty eating pizza, but not pasta, but he guesses it could go on the  _ maybe _ list.

He forgets himself a few moments later when the bathroom door opens and she steps out wrapped in only a towel, water droplets trickling from the ends of her hair so they form trails down her chest. It’s almost like kissing her has awakened anything and everything he’s kept suppressed since he’s known her.

He gulps and hopes she doesn’t notice.

“I wasn’t sure what I should wear,” she says. “You said you wanted to get that picture at the walkway.”

Right. He  _ did _ say that. (And he does still want it, but he thinks he wants more for her to just put  _ anything  _ on so he can look directly at her again without his hormones doing something that’ll scare her)

He tries desperately to recall the exact shade of the trees, and then imagines how they might look with the glow from the streetlamps when it gets dark. “Do you have something yellow?” Jughead asks. “Or -”

“- I have a cami,” she offers. “It’s yellow with white flowers on it. I could wear it with those shorts I bought today?”

“Sounds,” he starts, making the mistake of looking back up at her. Her eyes are happy and her shoulders now have a scattering of freckles from the sun, and she looks so effortlessly beautiful that he loses his train of speech.

“I can put on something else? Maybe a dress or -”

“- No,” he interrupts. “The yellow will be perfect.” 

Betty smiles and he watches her collect her things from her bag before disappearing back into the bathroom. 

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead isn’t expecting the men with cameras when they make a right onto King Street as they’re walking in downtown Charleston. Betty, who’s been holding his hand since they parked up, immediately unlinks their fingers and ducks her head as the small handful of paparazzi snap away and ask her questions about Chic and her campaign with Saitō-Sano. They ask her whether the rumours about  _ them _ are true; if they’ve been having an affair; if the baby was his or Chic’s.  

_ The baby. _ Somehow, they know. 

Jughead doesn’t know what to say or do to help the situation - just knows that what he  _ really _ wants (to punch them all in the face for daring even to take her picture let alone ask her those questions) is a bad idea in term of creating more publicity. He is though, absolutely incensed. 

It’s been easy to forget about this aspect of Betty’s life while they’ve been away from the city, but here it is being literally shoved in both of their faces. 

Just a little way ahead is the boutique he recognises as the one they bought a few items from the previous day, and he brushes his fingers against hers as they approach, not really caring or not whether the paparazzi get it on film. 

“Inside,” he tells her quietly, holding open the door so she can step first into the store away from the flashes. 

“Jug,” she whimpers, eyes full with tears that don’t fall, and he leads her to the narrow space at the back of the store which houses the dressing rooms.

“I know,” he whispers, checking they’re out of sight of the cameras before he tugs her close, wrapping an arm around her as he strokes through her hair. “I’m so sorry Betts.”

He can feel her shudder against his chest and knows she’s crying now, and he can’t think what to do or say to make it better. All he can offer is to hold her tighter in the hope that she’ll understand that he’d change it all for her if he could. 

The store owner sticks her head around the corner and must recognise Jughead from the previous day. “If you want to use the back exit,” she says. “I’ll show you.”

He nods gratefully, but Betty doesn’t move so he steers her inside of one of the dressing rooms so they’re completely away from anyone. 

“How do they know?” she chokes. “How -”

“- I don’t know,” he murmurs into her hair. “Maybe someone at the hospital…” he trails off, figuring it doesn’t really matter how the information has gotten out. It  _ has, _ and he needs to figure out what he can do to protect her from whatever stories the press are circulating. Getting her out of the store and away from the cameras would be a start, he thinks.

“We can go back to the motel,” he whispers. “You can wait here while I get the car and -”

“- No,” she cuts in. “No, I want to stay with you.”

“The owner said we can use the back exit; head back that way.”

She nods once against his chest and then pulls back slightly. He wants to press a kiss to her forehead but doesn’t know if he’s supposed to ask or not, so in the end he kneads his fingers at her shoulder. 

“Where do you need to get to?” the store owner asks when they emerge, Jughead shielding Betty so nobody can see her face.

“Nassau and Line.”

“Take a left,” she says. “And then your first right. It’ll be two blocks from there.”

He nods gratefully and they leave through the back.

  
  
  
  
  


“Do you think Chic knows too?” she asks once they’re in the car.

_ “Betty.” _

“Do you?” she asks again. “Do you think he thinks I got rid of it, because -”

“- Hey.” It’s his turn to jump in. “Don’t worry about that now.”

“I thought about it.” Her voice is flat. “Maybe it knew somehow, and took away my choice so I didn’t have to decide.”

Jughead desperately doesn’t know what to say in response, but  _ not  _ saying anything might make her keep talking. He doesn’t want her to feel guilty for what she’s said here too. 

“I think…” he starts, and realises he doesn’t know where he’s going with his sentence.

“You’re going to say something kind,” Betty states. “So I’ll feel better. You don’t always have to do that.”

He swallows at the fact he’s failed anyway. “It makes me feel better,” he admits. 

She purses her lips and he steps a little harder on the gas. “Maybe we shouldn’t be as selfish.”

Maybe, he thinks, but also, maybe they should. Maybe they  _ should _ try to make it better - even if it doesn’t work. He figures they’ve both felt pretty shitty for a good portion of their lives, and perhaps it isn’t selfish at all to want to escape that. He tells her as such, and she doesn’t reply. 

“I think you’re one of the least selfish people I know,” Jughead adds. 

The rest of the ride is silent save for the low rumbling of the engine, and the crunch of the gravelly surface beneath the tyres when he pulls into the motel’s parking lot. He kills the engine and his stomach chooses that precise moment to growl.

“You’re hungry,” Betty states. 

He is, but not so much that he can’t go to bed on an empty stomach. (He’s done it enough times in the past anyway) “I’m okay.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You haven’t eaten since lunch.”

“It’s okay, I don’t need -”

_ “- Jug,” _ she warns.

“Yeah, I could eat.” He concedes, getting an idea. “But what if we just got food to go? We can eat it back in the room.” 

For the first time since they climbed back into the Pontiac, she looks at him, eyes soft and grateful despite the hurt. “Okay.”

He offers a small smile. “Okay.”

They eat cross-legged on their respective beds (or, more accurately, Jughead eats and she nibbles at a mozzarella stick before toying with a limp shred of lettuce). He manages to devour a cheeseburger with fries, her remaining mozzarella sticks and the hot apple pie pocket which, by the time he gets to it, has grown cold. Betty watches him with what appears to be curiosity and the tiniest hint of amusement, and, because he’s a freaking  _ idiot, _ he jokes,

“Ten dollars for a ticket to the J _ ughead Jones eats his way through crappy diner food show. _ ”

She doesn’t laugh. Instead, she says, “Tonight wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

“I know,” he sighs softly. “I’m sorry it did.”

“I want to know what they’re saying. If… if they’re blaming me or… I don’t know if I can.”

“You don’t have to,” he tells her. 

“I should’ve checked my phone properly. If I had…”

“If you  _ had,” _ he reminds her gently, “you wouldn’t have been able to stop the stories anyway. The press are vultures, Betty. They feed on things like this - and they don’t care about the truth. So…” He crosses to her bed, sinking onto the edge of her mattress. “So please don’t think you could’ve changed this in anyway.” He takes her hands in his, easing his thumbs between her fingers and her palms. “And please don’t do that, either.” He brings her palms to his lips, kissing the marks there, and then she rests her head on his shoulder, - just lightly at first, before she adjusts her position so she’s cradled against his side. 

“I’m sorry you didn’t get the picture,” she whispers, and he squeezes her tighter. 

“I’m not.”

“Really? You mean that?” There’s disbelief in her tone, but it’s the quiet kind as opposed to the chiding she’d used earlier when he’d said he wasn’t hungry.

Okay, he  _ is  _ sorry he didn’t get the picture, but that’s not what he’s most disappointed about. He’d just wanted to hold her hand; have her snuggle into his side after leaving the restaurant; kiss her under the dim light of a side street’s lamp. “Out of everything,” he says. “That was last on my list for tonight.”

She lifts her head a fraction. “What was first?”

_ “Betts.”  _

“What was first?” she repeats again - more insistent this time. 

Jughead swallows and then swallows again. She’s still leaning against him and she smells like the lavender-cardamom shower gel she’d brought from New York. “First was… it was asking you something. It can wait.”

“How come?”

“How come what?”

“How come it can wait?”

Because now isn’t the right time to ask you on a date, he thinks. “Because I want to ask it somewhere else.” Because I don’t want you to remember that moment ( _ if _ you remember that moment) and think of what else happened. 

Betty seems to make her peace with that and sighs out a long breath. Her phone vibrates rather aggressively in her purse, and he watches her debate whether or not to answer. Answering wins, in the end, and she leaves his side to find it.

“Mom,” she says tiredly, and Jughead looks towards the door leading to the outside corridor. “I didn’t… I… What are they saying?”

He looks back at Betty who’s wiping under her left eye, and whispers, “I’m just gonna….” he indicates the door. “If you need me.”

She nods, curves her lips into a grateful smile, and he squeezes her arm gently as he passes. 

It’s still warm outside despite the now blue-black of the sky, and he’s forced to swat at the tiny insects dancing too close to his face. It’s been a while since he smoked - a couple of years, probably - but his fingers itch for the comfort of a lit Newport as he leans over the railing. He blows out the breath he’s holding, close to being able to smell the smoke through sheer imagination, and contemplates the short walk to the gas station a block away so he can buy a pack. 

The only thing that stops him is the thought of Betty finishing her phone call, opening the door with an expectancy to find him outside, only to discover he’s not there. It’s not worth it, he decides, for her to find this hallway empty.

Instead, Jughead pulls his phone from his back pocket and types Betty’s name into the search bar. Immediately, a list of news articles flood his screen: some with capitalised BETTY COOPER PREGNANT; some with question marks after the word abortion; some which include the word paternity. There’s one at the very top - the most recent - which is accompanied by a photograph of Betty and him as they’d been walking on King Street, just before he’d tugged her inside of the boutique. The article includes older pictures too: one from the Brooklyn warehouse shoot they’d met at that had made it to the magazine; one taken from his Instagram page that shows her on the graffiti-covered balcony in East Harlem; one of him which he recognises as his profile picture. 

Jughead finds himself reading the story: a mostly speculative (although alarmingly accurate) depiction of their relationship from photographer and model to ‘close friends - or maybe even more’. 

There’s a link at the bottom to an article surrounding Chic’s partying which is accompanied by a shot of him leaving a club in New York with some white powder residue on his septum. The online publication has drawn a red circle around the end of his nose on a zoomed-in shot, and he decides not to read any further. 

A truck rattles past on the highway above, and the sound must mask that of the door opening, because he feels, rather than hears Betty beside him. 

“I’ll be okay,” she whispers before he can ask, sliding her fingers in with his. I  _ will be, _ not  _ I am, _ he hears, and he brings their joined hands up to his mouth so he can brush his lips against them. 

“Your mom?” he asks. 

She shrugs - more resigned than anything. “Advised me to reply with my work. Shoots that remind people I’m not pregnant. Campaigns that remind people I’m a model above all else.”

“And what about you?” he asks. “What do  _ you _ want?”

She sighs and closes her eyes. “I want to turn it off. All of it.”

It’s Betty, in the end, who suggests they go back inside. They change into their pajamas (her in the bathroom and him in the bedroom) and then brush their teeth - her first, then him. When Jughead steps back into the bedroom, she’s not lying under the covers of her bed like he expects, but looking back and forth between his and hers. 

Last night, they’d shared. The night before, they’d shared too, and because he’s pretty sure what’s going through her mind right now, the last thing he wants is for her to feel pressure in any way. And so, before she can force herself into doing something just because she thinks she  _ should,  _ Jughead says, 

“You don’t have to.” Her eyes fix on his. “The bed. You don’t have to share.”

“I want to,” she whispers. “And that’s what scares me.”

“It scares me too sometimes,” he admits, his tone closely matching hers. “Whatever this is between us.”

“It does?”

“Betty, I haven’t…” How does he tell her he hasn’t had a real girlfriend before? Hasn’t really been on a date? Hasn’t shared a room with a girl other than Toni Topaz when they were in elementary school? How does he tell her that he feels so much of  _ something _ for her that it’s overwhelming at times, because he can’t even put it into words? “I want to, too,” he says eventually. “But…what if you held my hand?” 

She looks at him, and then at her still-made bed. Jughead watches her, teeth gnawing on her bottom lip until eventually, she tugs the sheet from its fold and slips underneath. He does the same, and Betty extends her arm across the space between their beds as she turns to face him. 

“I think,” she replies, fingers entwining with his as his thumb rubs across her skin. “That would be nice.”

He doesn’t turn the light out straight away because this way, he can still see her face. Her eyes are watching him and he wonders what it is she’s thinking. 

“Do you still love your mom?”

He doesn’t expect it to be  _ that. _

His fingers tighten around hers involuntarily, but he’s quick to relax them again so he won’t hurt her. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe, sometimes, I think I might. And then other times, I think I might hate her, because…”  _ Because he doesn’t want to love her still. _ “I think I feel bad for her,” he decides. “More than anything.” 

“Sometimes,” Betty whispers, her eyelashes blinking against the pillowcase. “I think I might love mine out of habit.”

Jughead thinks he might love his dad that way too. He brushes his thumb over her skin again. “I don’t think it’s something you can control.”

“Loving my mom?”

“Loving anybody.”

Neither of them say anything else and for a long time, the only sounds in the room are their breaths mixed with the dying whir of the bathroom’s extractor fan.

“My arm’s starting to ache,” Betty admits somewhat guiltily. 

(So is his, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it aloud) “You can let go,” he tells her. “I’ll still be here in the morning.”

She seems reluctant, squeezing his hand a little tighter until she nods fractionally, rustling her pillow. “Okay.”

She draws her hand back towards her face, tucking it under her cheek. 

“Shall I turn out the light?” Jughead asks. It’s still bright despite the dull bulb, and he can see her eyelids growing heavy.

“Yes please.”

He has to climb out of bed to do so - the switch for the main light is on the far side of the room - but it gives him the opportunity on the way back to bend at the side of her bed to drop a kiss to her forehead. “Night Betts,” he whispers.

Her voice sounds thick when she returns the sentiment. “Goodnight Jug.”

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead sits up at the sound of his name, blinking into the darkness. He thinks the two syllables must come from Betty - nobody else is here with them - and when he hears his name again, this time accompanied by her fingers on his arm, it provides confirmation. 

“Betty?” His voice is scratchy and dry. “What’s -”

“- Let’s go get that picture,” she says. 

“Mmm what time is it?” Jughead rubs at his eyes but it still doesn’t clear them of sleep.

“It’s early,” she replies. “But if you still want to, it’ll probably just be us.”

His brain isn’t working fast enough though, and he’s confused. _What picture?_ _What’ll be just us?_ he’s about to ask. And then, finally, he gets it. Gateway Walk. 

“Even if it was last on your list,” she tells him. “We should still go.”

He catches her fingers near the edge of his sheet. “Are you sure?” he asks. “We don’t have to, just because it was on the list.”

Betty’s voice is low when she says, “You don’t understand. I  _ want  _ you to have it.” She presses a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth and then flicks on the lamp beside their beds. He finds that she’s already dressed - back in the outfit she’d been wearing the previous night - and she’s stunning. 

I could love you, he thinks. I could love you  _ so much. _

They drive the thirty minutes north until they can park up close to Gateway Walk. The early morning is almost eerily quiet, even downtown where the cafes and bars have long since closed, the sun still yet to rise above the city to colour everything again. 

Their belongings are packed up and waiting in the trunk: they’ll drive away from the city after this, taking only the side roads and stopping only where there’s privacy. At the passenger side of the car, Betty takes his hand and he presses a kiss to her temple as they round the block and the opening to the walkway comes into view. She stands, not directly under the amber glow, but a little behind the spill of artificial light, angling her head downwards and then half-turning away from the camera as he presses the shutter button. He gets shot after shot, all of them fractionally different, and Jughead wonders whether he would have ever gotten anything like this if they’d never met. 

“More?” she asks when he lowers his camera, and he shakes his head. He could probably get her in one take if he needed to. 

“No,” he says. “Let’s go baby.”

The term of endearment slips out, and as much as he’s never used it before - and this probably isn’t the situation in which he should use it for the first time - no word has ever felt so right to say. 

Betty looks up at him, her eyes shining as if she’s made them do it on purpose - as if she wants to make him forget his own name - and says, “I like that - baby.”

She rises to her tiptoes, resting her fingers in the dips of his biceps and tilts her chin upwards. He feels a grin spread across his lips as he cups either side of her face and captures her lips with his; feels it spread further when a soft sigh tumbles out of her mouth and into his own. 

When they break apart, Betty smiles and says, “Let’s go west.”

  
  
  
  
  


Dawn breaks as they’re passing through some tiny town named Varnville. Betty’s pressed up against the window, shoes off and knees tucked in towards her chest so Jughead can see her chipped nail polish, her breaths rhythmic with sleep. He wonders if she’d even slept at all before waking him, or whether she’d been lying there thinking about the stories in the press (or worse - reading them).

He takes a right at the intersection and passes the Piggly Wiggly, the name making him smile with its ridiculousness. Further down the road is the Food Lion which makes him wonder whether it’s compulsory in this area of the country to name supermarkets after animals. 

Betty stirs, coming to with a mumble-whine as she stretches her limbs out as best she can in the confined space. “I fell asleep,” she complains, reaching her fingers across the shift until they meet his. “I’m sorry.”

“You were tired,” he replies, squeezing gently.

“What did I miss?”

“A couple of questionably-named supermarkets, churches, approximately five other vehicles.”

“Sounds thrilling,” she mumbles with a smile. “You hungry? We could get breakfast.” 

“Baby,” he almost groans. “I thought you’d never ask.”

A series of turns has them arriving in Allendale a little after six, only to find that the single place serving breakfast is, unfortunately, a Hardee’s.

“It doesn’t matter,” Betty says. “We can eat there.”

But he doesn’t want her to eat there. He wants something better for her - something she’ll enjoy - and so he turns the car around in the lot and heads along the highway until they cross the border into Georgia.  

Eventually, they reach a tiny town with a diner that reminds Jughead of Pop’s. It’s lit with neon strips and is surrounded on three sides by a parking lot framed with trees. The sun is already hot overhead when they step out, and Jughead is thankful all over again for the Pontiac’s air conditioning. 

“We should take a walk after,” Betty suggests. “It’s not good for your legs to be cramped all the time.”

“I’m okay,” he replies, but a walk  _ does _ sound good before it gets too hot.

“Even so, the fresh air is good for you.”

“Alright,” he agrees. “After I’ve had a burger though.”

“A burger? It’s not even nine!”

“I’m a growing boy, Betts,” he returns, then takes her hand in his.

Once he’s filled his stomach (thanks to a breakfast burger and a side of hash browns) and Betty claims she’s filled hers (though he’s not sure how, given that she’d eaten no more than half of her toast and eggs) they leave the car parked in the shade of the lot’s eastern corner and walk along the edge of a small river running parallel to the road. It’s fringed on both sides of the bank by a narrow path and tall shrubbery, and Jughead can hold her hand without anyone taking pictures.

As they continue walking, the river begins to widen, just a little at first, but increasing steadily so that they start to feel the benefit of the cool water on the breeze that drifts across. When they reach a small oxbow lake, the water abandoned by the river which has cut itself a new path, he slows to a stop and takes a breath, turning towards Betty who blinks at him in slight confusion.

“What is it?”

His hands are suddenly clammy with nerves. “I’d really like to… Can I take you on a date?”

“Juggie,” she breathes, fingers stroking his cheek. “I’d love that.”

He leans in to kiss her, sealing their lips together in gratitude. “Tomorrow night,” he smiles against her mouth. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“We’ll be staying in the same room,” she giggles, and her eyes scrunch up at the corners, all shining green and happy. 

“I’ll pick you up at eight,” he repeats, and presses his lips to hers once more.


	12. Chapter 12

_ And if I've been feeling heavy _

_ You take me from the dark; _

_ Your arms they keep me steady _

_ So nothing could fall apart _

 

They find a small town seated on a lake that has a tiny gas station, a couple of stores and a single Mexican restaurant in addition to a motel, and decide to stay when not a single person looks at them twice as they’re buying a host of unhealthy groceries in the town’s little store. The snacks are for Jughead, not her, and she rolls her eyes affectionately when he immediately opens the box of Twinkies as soon as they reach the parking lot. 

“Are you sure I can’t interest you in one?” he asks.

“Even if they weren’t horribly bad for you, they’re disgusting,” Betty laughs. “So thank you, but no.”

“Your loss,” he shrugs and stuffs half the cake into his mouth, chewing and swallowing in record speed so he can enjoy the remaining half. 

It’s amazing, she thinks, how he can eat like he does and still look like that. It’s not like she’s been purposely taking note of his physique but it’s not like she  _ hasn’t _ been looking either, and now that she knows what it feels like to be kissed by him, she’s found herself thinking about what it might be like to do  _ other _ things with him too. 

“What do you want to do?” Jughead asks. 

The lake they’d driven past earlier had had a small swath of sand she thinks it might be nice to stretch out on, and given that he’s driven for around six hours already she thinks it’s only fair they do something that doesn’t require much energy.

“How about the lake?” she suggests. “We could take a couple of towels from the motel.”

He smiles at her as her fingers twitch next to his. He captures them, entwining his own which are a little sticky from the cake, but she doesn’t mind one bit. “Sounds perfect.”

It isn’t too far of a walk from the roadside motel, and after they’ve changed into the bathing suits they bought in Charleston (navy shorts for him and a black one piece for her) they take a left and head down Main Street. 

They pass a little bakery selling cookies and ice cream, and Betty laughs when Jughead sniffs appreciatively at the smell. They’re about to take another left towards the lake when he places his hand on the bottom of her back and says,

“Look, a bookstore.” 

His fingers seems to burn her skin beneath her dress, splayed as they are at the base of her spine, and she turns her head against his shoulder, resting her lips at the cotton material of his t-shirt. “You want to take a look?”

“If you don’t mind,” he says, and her chest squeezes because he’s so wonderfully considerate in everything he does that she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to repay him. 

“Juggie,” she whispers, turning further into him so she can cup both of her hands around one of his. “Of course I don’t.”

The tiny store is crammed from floor to ceiling with second-hand books of all kind. Jughead drops a kiss to her hair before leaving her in the historical fiction section so he can take a look at the array of crime novels filling the far corner of the space, and for a while Betty finds herself just staring after him, watching the way he selects a book on the shelf and eases it out with nimble fingers. Maybe he senses her, because he turns and catches her eye, and rather than dropping her gaze she smiles at him, something fluttering inside of her chest that makes her breath stutter.

She wants to kiss him then - cross the room and rub her hands lightly against his chest; sigh into his mouth when he does that cupping-her-jaw thing with his fingers. Nobody has ever touched her face the way he does when he kisses her. 

She remains though, where she is, still a little unsure of what they are and what she’s allowed to do. He’s been so careful with her -  _ remains _ so careful with her - and maybe when they’ve had their date tomorrow evening, things will be a little clearer. 

There are butterflies in her stomach when she thinks about  _ that _ too: about getting ready so he can pick her up at eight; about where they’ll go and how long it’ll be until he kisses her.    

They spend close to a half hour poring over the books until they both reach a decision. Betty places the tattered copy of  _ Beloved _ on the counter beside Jughead’s selection:  _ The Maltese Falcon. _ He pays despite her protests, his hand lingering again on the bottom of her spine as he murmurs into her ear,

“Let  _ me, _ baby.”

There’s a sudden rush of something that floods her then - not a feeling she can put into words - and it has her pressing herself closer to him so there isn’t a hint of space between their bodies. He takes her hand as they exit, threading their fingers like it’s something he’s always done, and she rests her head on his shoulder. 

The lake is only a few more minutes along the street, then a couple more after that following a sand-gravel path that opens out onto the curve of sand. A few other people are already stretched out on towels and blankets, but it’s quiet and nobody looks in their direction as they settle towards the edge of the little beach. 

Jughead flops down on his towel and promptly removes his t-shirt, discarding it in a heap in the general direction that he’s going to rest his head.

“Jug,” she admonishes gently, smiling as she rests on her knees to fold the garment so it doesn’t crease quite so terribly. He grins at her and she finds her mouth pulled into such a wide smile that it shocks her: she can’t remember the last time her chest has felt so light. Even with everything yesterday - the men with the cameras and the stories she’d read while Jughead was asleep - she realises she might just be happy. 

_ It’s you, _ she thinks, looking at Jughead as he settles his head on the newly-folded t-shirt.  _ You’re what makes me happy. _

Betty unfolds her towel and lays it down beside his on the sand, toeing off her sandals before settling down. He looks at her for a moment,  _ stares _ even, and as she opens her mouth to ask if everything’s okay, he says,

“You look so pretty Betts.”

She’s going to brush it off, dip her head and change the subject, but something stops her. Instead, she tucks her hair behind her ear and tells him, very quietly,

“Thank you.”

Jughead falls asleep as he’s reading, his book open on page fourteen, pages rustling in the lake’s breeze, and Betty takes it off of his chest to set at the side of her towel. The sun is hot overhead, and she worries briefly about their lack of sunscreen. Jughead doesn’t look like he’s burning though, just more tan if anything, and after inspecting her own shoulders she realises she’s slightly less pale too. 

She pauses in her reading to remove her dress, folding it neatly so it’ll double as a pillow, and then lays back down facing him. His breathing is almost hypnotic: so even everytime he exhales that Betty finds her own eyes closing. She blinks them back open tiredly and smiles to herself when she hears a soft snore coming from the man next to her.  

  
  
  
  
  


She wakes with a start, feeling as though she’s falling, and immediately she feels Jughead’s hand at the curve of her waist. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, her eyes adjusting to the bright light. “I must’ve been dreaming.”

His fingers rub backwards and forwards and her eyes drift to where they’re resting against her swimsuit.

“Sorry,” Jughead apologises, drawing his hand back to his side. “I should’ve asked if -”

“- It’s okay,” she tells him. “I… it was nice.”

His eyes are hopeful when he looks at her, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Yeah?” 

Betty can feel a flush on her cheeks when he slides his fingers back to the spot they’d just been. She watches them for a while, her breathing more shallow than she wants it to be. “I wanted to kiss you earlier,” she says. “In the bookstore.”

The ends of his fingers press lightly into her flesh. “Why didn’t you?”

“We haven’t had our date yet. I… I wasn’t sure - I’m  _ not  _ sure - what the rules are.”

“Betts,” he smiles, smoothing his hand up over the side of her ribs. “The rules?”

“I haven’t done this before. Chic was my first boyfriend and… I’m not sure we ever went on a date.”

“If you want to kiss me, then  _ God, _ ” he whispers. “You can kiss me.”

She does, closing the gap between them and sliding her own fingers to his arm. For the first time, Jughead doesn’t cup her face, using his hands instead to graze the material of her swimsuit. His lips move against hers and Betty can feel his thumb stroking over her rib, just a little way below her breast. She inches closer, dragging up a ridge of sand between them which stops her getting close  _ enough. _ It serves as a reminder though, of where they are. In public. 

She pulls back slightly, opening her eyes to find his wide and shining. “I can just do that?” she asks. “Whenever?”

He grins and a single chuckle trips out of his mouth before he presses his lips to hers again. “Whenever.”

They stay at the lake until the shadows indicate it’s close to dinner time, then walk back to the motel to shower before finding something to eat. They have only two options now that the bakery is closed: the grocery store or the little Mexican restaurant, and after the way things went the previous night, Betty figures she owes it to Jughead to try a taco. 

They find it’s later than either of them had anticipated by the time they’re ready to head back out again. This time, she slips her hand against his, waiting until he entwines their fingers before squeezing gently.

“You hungry?” she asks.

He tugs her closer. “Always.” 

The restaurant - Maria’s - is owned by a rather enigmatic man called José Antonio who welcomes them both inside and explains that he named the place after his mother who still lives in Oaxaca. Betty can see Jughead smiling at the story, can feel that he wants to laugh by the way his fingers sink a little way into her skin over the camisole she’s wearing. 

“Her favourite are tacos al pastor so they’re always on special,” José Antonio explains, waving his hand in the direction of a small chalkboard with hard-to-read writing.

Jughead  _ does _ laugh once they’re seated at a wooden table that rocks when he leans his elbows on it, and Betty finds herself smiling too.

They order the special tacos in addition to charred corn, tomatillo salsa, guacamole and  chips, and she gets the chicken tortilla soup too. José Antonio brings them tequila-based cocktails they didn’t order (which actually turn out to be delicious) and Betty decides this might be the most relaxed place she’s ever been. 

Despite the food, by the time she’s finished her drink she can feel the effects of the alcohol, and combined with the sun from earlier and her lack of sleep the previous night, it becomes difficult to stifle her yawns.

“Is my company that bad?” Jughead jokes, and she reaches across the table for his hand.

“I’ve had a lovely evening Jug.”

He strokes his thumb over her palm and says, “Me too.”

  
  
  
  
  


There is only one bed. They weren’t offered the choice of a double or twin room earlier, and Betty’s not entirely sure whether she feels relieved about that fact or not. 

“We don’t have to -” Jughead starts, but she cuts him off with her hand on his forearm. He must’ve sensed what she was thinking and she loves him so much for it, but she  _ wants  _ to share. She  _ does. _ And she wants him to know that.

“- I like sleeping next to you Juggie.”

He seems unsure of what to say, but eventually settles on, “I should brush my teeth.”

Her limbs feel heavy as she changes into her pajama shorts and t-shirt, but she manages without incident, sweeping her hair into a ponytail ready for the bathroom. Jughead emerges smelling like mint, and they trade places with a sort of precarious casualness. By the time she’s finished, he’s stretched out beneath the sheet and she feels her heart rate speed up as she makes her way across the room.

The lamp is on, offering a yellowish-gold light over the head of the bed. Jughead looks golden too, as he shifts carefully across the mattress so there’s more room at her side than there is at his. Her fingers feel a little slack when she tries to grip the bedsheets, and Betty wonders whether the nerves are working against the alcohol so that what her limbs are left with are incoherent signals from her brain.

Tentatively, she settles under the somewhat scratchy cotton, her eyes sliding to Jughead who’s watching her. “We’ve shared a bed before,” she says. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”

He takes her hands, not linking their fingers this time, but holding them carefully between the two of his. I’m not expecting anything,” he tells her. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

It wasn’t - not really - but hearing him say it somehow makes her feel a little less anxious.

“What was your last girlfriend like?” she asks.

It takes him a while to answer, but eventually he says, “I uh… I haven’t really had one. A girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

“I mean I’ve…  _ you know. _ ” He rubs his neck and turns his head sheepishly. “With a couple of girls but sharing a bed for more than an hour or two is a little strange for me too.” 

“Good strange or -”

“- Good strange,” he says with a smile creeping up to his eyes. “Definitely good.”

He releases her hands and Betty inches closer, the ends of her ponytail tickling her shoulder. She brushes it to the side and it lands partly on his pillowcase.

“Sorry,” she apologises.

Jughead shrugs and fingers the ends. “Do you often sleep with it tied back?” 

“Sometimes. Sometimes I have it down.”

“Just seems like it wouldn’t be very comfortable.” He pauses and then swallows, like he’s nervous. “Can I take it out of the elastic?”

“You want to?”

“Yes,” he swallows again and his voice is close to a whisper. “It looks soft.”

The smile creeps across her lips as she turns from her back to her side, facing away from him so he can reach the tie. His hands are gentle when they stretch the elastic just enough to loosen the first loop. After that, he unwraps slowly, twisting until her hair skirts the top of her shoulder blades and her eyes are closing in anticipation. She remembers Polly twirling specific strands around her finger when they were kids, but it never felt like this. 

“There,” he breathes out, and she turns again so she’s facing him, snuggling closer. He strokes his hands through the waves slowly, his fingertips grazing the top of her back each time they reach the end of her hair, and Betty closes her eyes again. 

“You’re good at that.”

He doesn’t say anything, but she feels his lips come to rest on her forehead as she curls her palms against his chest. 

  
  
  
  


She’s the first to wake in the morning, the sunlight cutting through the small gap in the drapes. At some point in the night, Betty figures she must’ve turned, judging by the fact that Jughead is curled around her from behind, arm around her waist and his lips resting just below her ear.

The entire thing is close to being a sensory overload: the pine-soap scent of his skin; the hot rush of his breath; the soft brush of his fingers against her stomach; the hard length of his erection pressing against her ass. 

She closes her eyes again and takes in a deep breath. The mattress is comfy in that way mattresses are when they sag in the middle and sigh almost contentedly when someone lies on them.

A few moments later, Jughead starts to wake - first with an inhale that’s clogged with a yawn, then with his arm tightening around her waist, his lips pressing closer to her ear, and he shifts his lower half so she can no longer feel him against her.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and she smiles, turning over so she can look at him.

Her own voice is raspy when she says, “Don’t be. Morning Juggie.”

He nuzzles into her hair and Betty’s smile stretches wider. “Mmmm, morning baby.”

Her stomach somersaults and all she can think is _ I want to kiss you. _

She does, sealing her lips over his lightly. His mouth is warm and she finds that she doesn’t want to pull away, even when the kiss is over.

“Are we still on for tonight?” he asks, lifting his hand palm-side up so he can catch her hair and pull it gently over her shoulders. 

“I hope so,” she replies, trying to recall a moment in her life when she’s ever felt this content. She can’t. “You’re still going to pick me up?”

“Of course.”

“To go where?”

“Betts,” he chides with a smile, stroking his index finger under her chin. It makes goosebumps rise on her neck. “That’s a surprise.”

It’s his turn to kiss her next, with a sweet kind of innocence that gives her enough courage to say the words bubbling in her chest. “Can I ask you something?” 

“Of course.”

“You haven’t shared a bed with a girl before? Overnight I mean.”

“No.”

“The night after I lost the baby -”

“- Was my first time,” he confirms. 

Betty swallows, her throat suddenly thick. “Did I force you to? I told you the bed was big enough -”

“- Betty.” His voice is low but firm. “You’ve never forced me to do  _ anything. _ ”

Those thoughts that she might have somehow coerced him into all of this still linger at the back of her mind occasionally, and as much as she tries to block them out, there’s still a feeling of waiting for him to realise there’s so much more out there than her. 

“I’ve never shared a bed overnight because I never wanted to.” He holds her tighter. “But I want to share this one with you.”

  
  
  
  
  


After breakfast at the bakery, they spend the day at the lake again, reading and dozing off under the warmth of the sun until lunchtime where they visit the bakery for the second time in close to four hours.

“I can’t eat another pastry Jug,” Betty tells him, hoping there’ll be salad boxes in the refrigerator.  

“You  _ can’t? _ ”

She shrugs. “I shouldn’t.”

He sighs quietly, a hand reaching out for her hip as if to illustrate his point. “There’s nothing about this,” he murmurs, smoothing his fingers across the cotton material of her shorts. “That indicates you shouldn’t have a  _ thousand  _ pastries if that’s how many you want.”

“A thousand? I think I’d be -”

_ “- Betty.” _ His eyebrows lift slightly and she dips her head.

“Habit,” she says. “Sorry.”

“If you want the salad box,” he tells her, “then that’s what you should get. But don’t choose it because you think you  _ should. _ ”

Always so good, she thinks. He’s  _ always _ so  _ good. _ She curls her fingers at his palm until he fuses their hands together, and leans against his shoulder.

She eats her salad box seated opposite Jughead at one of the little wrought-iron tables belonging to the bakery. The cherry-oat cookie she buys as something of a compromise waits in a brown bag next to his triple chocolate one while she chews her lettuce and cucumber slowly, the dressing remaining unopened in the accompanying plastic pot. 

After lunch, Jughead suggests they take a walk around the edge of the lake - it’s not so large that it takes more than a couple of hours, but it’s enough of a distance that by the time they complete the loop, Betty is rather tired. 

“You should take a nap,” he tells her as they head back to the motel. “Before tonight.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You have something strenuous planned?” 

“Not exactly,” he chuckles. “But it’ll be better if you’re not tired.” His face suddenly grows serious though. “Betts, I… I haven’t really been on a date before. A proper one I mean - where I made plans.”

He continues to surprise her. She wants to ask why: why hasn’t anyone claimed him as their boyfriend before now? but she doesn’t want him to think there’s anything wrong with that. Also, there’s the not-so-small fact that it’s the same for her too.

“It’ll be a first for us both then,” she says softly, squeezing his hand. 

“Really?” he asks. “Even though -”

“- He didn’t ever take me on a date, Jug. We just…  _ were,  _ I guess.”

Jughead doesn’t say anything for a while, but she thinks she might feel him grasp her hand a little tighter.

When they reach the room, the sight of the bed makes Betty infinitely more tired. She curls up in the centre, closing her eyes momentarily, and hears him chuckle. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” he tells her, offering a kiss to her temple that makes butterflies flutter in her stomach, and her eyes close again as she hears the soft click of the bathroom door. 

  
  
  
  
  


A bang from outside startles her awake, and the first thought she has is that she can’t hear the shower, nor can she hear the whir of the bathroom fan. 

“Jug?” she asks, lifting her head, but he’s not in the room either. She knows it’s irrational given how wonderful he’s been, but she feels panic rise in her chest at the thought that he’s left. Left  _ her.  _

He hasn’t, of course, as she discovers when she catches sight of the piece of paper lying on the set of drawers opposite the bed. It tells her he hopes she slept well, and that he’ll pick her up at eight. Quickly, she glances at the clock on the bedside table and sees that it’s almost seven-fifteen.

She showers in something close to panic, shaving her legs and conditioning her hair: he’d said how it always looks soft and she wants to keep it that way; wants him to want to run his fingers through it; wants to have him untie the elastic so the strands can be freed from ponytail prison. 

Her hair dries in waves as she slips into the light blue dress she’d added to her bag back at home, and Betty spends the remaining twenty minutes pulling mascara through her eyelashes, running the light pink lip stain over her lips and pinning a small section of her hair so she won’t have to keep tucking it behind her ear. 

She doesn’t look too bad, she thinks (all things considered at least) and she’s pretty certain she owes the reflection in the mirror to Jughead. Her palms are relatively free of any fresh marks too: a testament to his vigilance or whatever it is that makes him notice when she’s about to hurt herself.

There’s a knock at the door, and Betty takes one last look in the mirror, smoothing down the non-existent creases in her dress. Her heart feels like it’s beating in her throat as she opens the door, but there, clutching flowers and dressed in a short-sleeve button-down she’s pretty sure is new, is Jughead. 

“Hi,” she breathes on an exhale. 

He dips his head, almost like he’s nervous, and rubs at the back of his neck with the hand that isn’t holding on to what appear to be a group of wildflowers. “Hi Betts.” He steps forward and holds out the flowers for her to take. “I’m sorry it’s not a proper bunch - neither the gas station nor the grocery store had any.” He rubs his neck again and she takes that hand too to stop him pressing too hard. “I picked these from down near the lake.”

She wants to tell him that somehow, they’re better than the store-bought kind, but she’s so overwhelmed that her mouth won’t work properly. In the end, she manages, “Jug, they’re lovely.”  

She fills the plastic cup beside the bathroom sink with water to stand the flowers in, and takes a couple of deep breaths. Jughead is waiting by the foot of the bed, this time rubbing his thumb across his lip in a way that Betty finds altogether distracting.  

“Ready?” he asks.

She nods despite feeling anything but. “Yes.”

He takes her hand, lacing their fingers together and she feels infinitely better as they step outside. Once they reach the parking lot, he tugs her closer and says,

“You look beautiful Betty,” and her heart almost gives out. 

They don’t get into the car like she expects to, nor do they go to the same restaurant as the previous night. Instead, Jughead leads her in the direction of the lake, but rather than taking the path towards the beach they continue on until they reach a clearing in the tall grass. There’s a picnic blanket and a couple of brown bags she recognises as being from the grocery store, and she’s overcome all over again.

“A picnic?”

“Yeah I… when I had this idea in Charleston, I figured there’d be more choice than what the Lake Mart provides.” He shrugs. “I know sometimes you get a little... _ overwhelmed _ when you go out to eat.”  

Betty inhales and squeezes his hand and thinks, I’m overwhelmed by _ you.  _

The selection of food he’s bought makes her smile: salad and olives and falafel which he doesn’t realise is made from chickpeas; chips made from root vegetables rather than potato; a selection of dips and breadsticks and celery “because that’s what the lady at the store said to get.” Even if Jughead were to eat it all, she knows he wouldn’t be full, and that’s what makes him all the more special because everything about it is for her. 

“Juggie,” she whispers, seating herself as close to him as she can get without being in his lap. “Thank you.”

“You haven’t tasted it yet,” he jokes, but she shakes her head, pressing her finger against his lips - followed by her mouth.

“Thank you.”

  
  
  
  
  


They stop by the Mexican place on the way back to the motel so Jughead can get some tacos to go, and just before they open the door he slides his palm around her waist to pull her closer, sealing his lips over hers. She can taste the lime from the guac on his lips and she runs her tongue over them, grinning at the vibration that comes from the back of his throat as her back hits the door softly.

They kiss until she’s not even thinking anymore; until her lips are moving simply because they know what to do when his slide against them, and somehow the door is opening behind her. She doesn’t trip, Jughead’s hands at her waist steadying her as they back over the threshold.

Betty hasn’t ever been kissed like _ this. _ She almost doesn’t know what to do with it, that is, until he stills his mouth against hers to say,

“Thank you for tonight.”

Thank  _ you, _ she should say. Thank  _ you _ for tonight. For today. For yesterday and the day before and the day before that. For everything.

She kisses him instead. They edge towards the bed and she’s not sure it’s intentional, but she’s also not sure that it’s  _ not _ intentional either. He pulls back when her knee brushes against the sheets, one hand still in the dip of her waist, the other curved at her jaw.

“Betty, I don’t expect… we don’t have to -”

She cuts him off with a kiss. “I want to.”

She slips off her sandals and settles herself in the centre of the mattress, trying not to let the thudding of her heart put her off. Jughead looks at her, seemingly unsure of what to do until he eventually joins her, boots making a thump on the floor as they land somewhere at the edge of the bed. 

His fingertips begin a sweep of her face, smoothing her hair back towards the pillow before he kisses her, softly at first, then with increasing pressure until her tongue makes its way past his. Still he tastes like lime and a little of the sparkling grape juice he’d gotten as part of the picnic, and Betty tells him as such, the words a little shakier than they’d been in her head.

She tilts her chin upwards so he’ll kiss her again, which he does, trailing his fingers down the column of her neck until they reach her collarbone - the last stretch of skin left before the top of her dress. Of course, her arms are uncovered too, and Jughead’s fingers go there next, stroking up and down while his lips move from hers to her jaw and then just a little below her ear before nuzzling down the side of her neck. It makes her toes scrunch and her stomach roll at the same time, and she thinks,

_ I want you to touch me.  _

After a while, he does. His right hand starts off on the outside of her knee and inches slowly up her thigh until she can feel his palm is higher than the hem of her dress. 

_ I want you to touch me, _ she think again.  _ I do: I want - _

And then he  _ does _ skirt his fingers over the edge of her panties, tracing the lace at the waistband, and she’s not ready. All of a sudden, Betty doesn’t want him to touch her like that, and maybe Jughead senses a change because he draws his hand back and says very quietly,

“Betts?”

“I’m sorry,” she starts, and crumples part-way through, shielding her face with her hands. He quickly shifts to the side - she can feel the mattress rise and then dip again - and she turns her face away towards the pillow. 

“I shouldn’t have -” he begins, but she stops him before he can finish because it’s not his fault in any way and she won’t let him think it is.

“- I wanted you to. I  _ did. _ ” She sucks in a shaky breath. “I didn’t think…” She didn’t think she’d picture Chic. She didn’t think she’d remember how it felt - that night in their bed with his hot breath at her neck and his hands pinning her against him. “I didn’t think I’d  _ remember  _ like this.”

“Baby,” he breathes out, stroking a wave of hair that’s fanned out across the pillow. He’s so gentle and considerate and  _ God _ \- he’s  _ loving _ in the way he does it - and fresh tears sting her eyes because she doesn’t want it to be like this. 

“I’m sorry.” She keeps her hands pressed to her face so he can’t see, but then, in the tiny gap of skin uncovered on her forehead, Betty feels him drop the softest of kisses.

“Don’t be.”

She realises then that her legs are clamped together and she wonders whether that had been what had alerted him, or whether it was something else. For a long time they lie there, her turned away and Jughead somewhere at the edge of the mattress, far enough away that she can’t feel his breath at her skin; close enough that he can still stroke her hair from a distance. 

“I can sleep on the floor,” he tells her quietly, and it sparks a fresh wave of tears because that’s not what she wants - not at all. 

“Juggie, no.”

She peels her hands from her face slowly, then turns her head so she can see him. His body is barely on the bed, and it hurts in her chest that she’s made him feel like that. She holds out her left hand so he’ll take her fingers in his (which he does of course, inching ever-so-slightly closer so he can bring them to his lips) and then gently tugs it loose again so she can stroke his face. His skin is soft and there are freckles from the sun, and she crawls close enough that she can burrow against his chest. He brushes her hairline with his lips and Betty closes her eyes, soothing her fingertips along his jaw. 

“This is my favourite,” he says. “I don’t want you to think that I want anything more than just to hold you.”

Her lips press a kiss at the open collar of his button down, and after a while, she whispers, “You’re _ my  _ favourite.”

  
  
  
  
  


They change into pajamas at some point: Betty isn’t sure of whether or not it’s as late as it feels, but she’s tired and Jughead’s stroking up and down her back has lulled her into something of a trance. He’s already in bed when she’s done in the bathroom, and she climbs in beside him, her hair out of its momentary ponytail for him to card his fingers through. 

“I don’t want to go back,” she admits for the second time on this trip.

Jughead’s voice is sincere when he says, “We don’t have to.”

Except they do, eventually. She can’t just keep hiding out in these little country towns with him. 

“We do,” she says. “Some time.”

The breath he blows out flushes her skin. “Not yet. I want to photograph you in the keys.”

She lifts her head so she can watch his face. “Florida?”

“Florida,” he confirms. “We haven’t got blue yet.”

“Jug,” she gasps, resting her fingers on the underside of his chin. 

“It’s a long drive though.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

Betty strokes her fingertips enough that he’ll tilt his chin to kiss her. “No.” 


	13. Chapter 13

_ Nobody knows how and  _

_ This feeling begins just like a spark _

_ Tossing and turning inside of your heart _

_ Exploding in the dark _

 

They pack up the trunk of the Pontiac - Jughead stuffing his bag in last without any real care if his t-shirts crease - and bid a silent goodbye to the motel. He figures he should reply to Archie’s texts at some point, at least to let him know his car is okay if nothing else. It’s not like he uses it much in the city anyway: its main destination is Veronica’s parents’ lake house somewhere upstate, and Jughead knows his best friend doesn’t have any plans to visit any time soon. By all accounts, Hiram and Hermione Lodge are in a whole other league.

They begin their journey south towards the Florida border, taking the routes that don’t involve any major highways, windows down and the radio playing something upbeat that funnily enough, he doesn’t completely hate. 

The song ends and another begins, the unmistakable opening that only country songs have, and Jughead reaches to change station when he hears Betty’s voice join the music. 

“She's got me saying sugar-pie, honey, darlin', and dear. I ain't seen the Braves play a game all year. I'm gonna get fired, if I don't get some sleep. My long lost buddies say I'm gettin' in too deep.”

He looks over at her as she sings, hair blowing around her face, bare feet up against the dash - and there’s such a wide smile stretching her lips that it tugs at something in his chest. He pulls the car over, clouds of dust rising around its body, and Betty stops her singing to ask,

“Why’re we -”

He plants his lips on hers, half-pulling her onto his lap (which proves a little difficult with their respective seatbelts) and a startled burst of air tumbles out of her mouth into his. She kisses him back, fingertips raking at his scalp as his slide along her jaw, and then she says, breathless,

“What was that for?”

Her eyes are shining and Jughead thinks his might be too. His answer is simple. “Because I couldn’t  _ not. _ ” 

“Juggie,” she whispers in that beautifully soft way of hers, stroking the sides of his face so his whole jaw goes slack. She doesn’t say anything else, but he thinks he knows what she means when she leans in to kiss him again - this time softer and slower until their lips are barely moving at all. 

Betty’s forehead is warm when she rests it against his and says, “I wish you could somehow drive like this.”

He grins against her skin. “Me too baby.”

Of course, he  _ can’t _ drive like that, and after kissing her once more he puts the car into drive and they rejoin the road again, the end of the song playing as she reaches her hand across the shift to settle over his.

They grab a late breakfast somewhere on state route 230, at a tiny diner that barely has any more than ten tables. The menu is small and there’s no burger, but Jughead selects the same as Betty: eggs and toast - but with a side of bacon. If past diner experiences are anything to go by, he’ll get the remainder of hers that she can’t eat anyway. Their waitress pours them coffee and he looks at the way the blinds filter the sunlight across her face so she’s painted in stripes, and thinks to himself,  _ I hope you’re happy. _

They’re halfway through their food when it happens: when the little bell on the door chimes and she stops chewing mid-mouthful. He doesn’t think much of it at first, at least, not until he’s swallowed his mouthful, taken a gulp of coffee and shovelled in a forkful of eggs in the time she’s been staring over his shoulder in the direction of the counter.

And then he hears it. “Mama can I sit?”

A little girl dressed in pink dungarees and white sandals climbs onto a chair at the table next to them without waiting for her mother’s answer, and Jughead watches as Betty stares so blatantly that he has to slide his hand across to table to catch her attention again.

“Betts?” he asks. “You okay?”

She nods, gaze shifting quickly back to her plate, and _ finally _ she swallows. It looks almost painful - like she’s had to force the food down - and Jughead finds himself close to wincing. Her eyes dart back to the table beside them when the little girl’s mother sits down too, a friendly smile offered in that way parents do when they’re apologising in advance for their child. He notes that Betty looks away without returning the sentiment at first, but then, very quietly, she asks,

“How old is she?”

“Just turned three,” the woman replies. “And she’s into everything. Can’t get a minute.”

Betty  _ does _ smile at that, and says, “She’s beautiful.”

They don’t exchange any more words, and Jughead finishes off the remainder of his breakfast while she pushes the eggs around with her fork until eventually deciding not to bother any more. He pays while she’s in the bathroom and she waits against the passenger side of the car while he empties his bladder too. They climb back in, the song on the radio quieter and more understated than earlier, and she murmurs,

“I’d be a good mom - when the time’s right. I would.”

“I know.”

She says nothing more, but as he exits the parking lot, he sees the fingers of her left hand sinking towards her palm.

“Stop, Betty,” he tells her gently, sliding his right hand across her skin so it forms a barrier between her nails and her palms. “Stop.”

She breathes in a shaky breath but doesn’t cry, and he drives like that with his hand curved around hers until they reach Quitman. The streets are lined with bunting and they slow almost to a stop as they head towards the town centre. Jughead looks across at the woman beside him, trying to decide whether or not she’s okay. Her hand is clutching his but he’s not entirely sure if it’s because she needs to, or because she’s forgotten it’s there.

In the end, he asks her, not content to guess and get it wrong. “Are you okay?”

She nods. “I just didn’t expect to feel...I felt something I haven’t felt before and… I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t sure what to do with it.”

He swallows and nods, squeezing her hand a little tighter. “Sometimes, when I’m in a bar, I hear bottles smashing or smell whisky on someone and it reminds me of my dad. I can picture him passed out on the couch like I’m right back in the trailer we lived in… I guess I’m never ready for  _ that _ either.”

“Jughead,” she says quietly, tugging at her seatbelt with her free hand so she can slide closer. “I didn’t know.”

Now she does, and there’s a strange feeling of relief settling over him that he hadn’t anticipated. She knows. She doesn’t think any less of him.

“I made my peace with it,” he says. “Not that that’s what you need to do, I just meant -”

“- Maybe I do,” Betty cuts in. “Maybe that’s exactly what I need to do. Not with Chic, but… being pregnant and then…  _ not _ anymore.”

He brings their joined hands to his mouth and brushes the ends of her fingers with his lips. “That’s up to you.”

The traffic inches forward and he spots a sign telling them that they’ve landed in town on the weekend of the Peach Festival.

“I can’t believe they show this much appreciation for a fruit that’s basically covered in fur,” he says. “They could’ve at least picked something good like, I don’t know, cucumbers.”

_ “Cucumbers?” _ Betty scoffs. “What -”

“- They make pickles. And pickles make burgers.”

She giggles: a light, airy sound that makes him want to swallow it so it’s inside of him for always. “I like peaches.”

“I like peach  _ pie. _ ”

“Maybe they’ll have some?” she guesses. 

“You want to take a look? It must be time to eat lunch.” 

“You’re going to eat peach pie for lunch?”

“Amongst other things, possibly,” he replies as they continue along the street where they turn, following the handmade wooden signs signalling parking for the fair.

They climb out, both squinting in the brightness of the sun, and head in the direction that most other people appear to be walking in. Betty takes his fingers loosely in her hand, curving her own over the ends and resting her other hand just a little way below his bicep. He feels an unusual sense of pride - not just at the fact that he’s walking around some tiny southern town with  _ Betty Cooper _ no less, but at the fact that she  _ chooses _ to nestle close; chooses to lean her head against his shoulder; chooses to rub the hand that’s not holding his fingers across his arm as she says,

“It smells amazing.”

He turns his head to the right, drops his chin just a fraction so he can press a kiss to her crown, and thinks  _ yeah, it does. _

The peach fair is, apparently, a big deal. There are stalls set up at either side of the street once they take a right out of the field-cum-parking-lot. There’s a band playing country music on a makeshift stage; people dancing in the street with plastic cups filled with beer and cider; kids chasing each other around bales of hay that’re doubling up as informal seating, and the whole thing looks pretty much like a film set. 

Jughead has left his camera in the trunk, but regrets it when he sees how old-world-charm the place is. He thinks about what Betty will look like seated on one of the bales, the sun sinking below the horizon, and decides there’s no real rush to get to the Keys. 

They can stay.

They buy fried chicken and sweet tea from two different stands, and she laughs when he says the tea is the worst thing he’s ever tasted. 

“I thought you liked sugar?” she says, and takes a sip of her own drink, scrunching her nose and closing her eyes when she gets brain freeze. This time, it’s his turn to laugh. They meader slowly around the stalls and stores for the remainder of the afternoon, nobody giving them a second look; nobody shouting Betty’s name or snapping pictures with their phones. He hasn’t yet put the picture on Instagram of her at Gateway Walk, and makes a mental note to do so when they reach the next place with wifi. 

They share a helping of grilled peaches and ice cream, and when Jughead kisses her she tastes like the dessert - all sweet and sugary and fresh. 

“Juggie,” she giggles, but kisses him back with smiling eyes and then take his hand in hers. 

They’re heading back in the direction of the car, neither intentionally nor unintentionally, when they pass a little bed and breakfast with an arch covered in roses. Betty marvels at how beautiful it all is, and because he doesn’t have his camera he uses his phone to snap a picture of her smelling one of the light pink flowers. Just as they’re taking a couple steps away from the fence, someone calls out,

“I’ve just had a cancellation if you’re fixin’ to stay over.”

He looks towards the porch and sees the owner of the voice - a woman with braided grey hair and a fan in her hand - rising from her rocking chair. “Oh,” Betty says. “Thank you but we’re just passing through.”

“But what about the dance?”

“Dance?” Jughead repeats in the form of a question. 

“We have one every year to celebrate the Peach Festival,” the woman tells them, negotiating her porch steps. “The band’s playin’ and everyone’ll be making merry. You like country music?”

He doesn’t, not really, but Betty says, “Of course.” 

“Then you really should stay. Oh my goodness gracious!” she exclaims suddenly. “Here I am getting all excited and I haven’t even told you young folks my name. It’s Caroline.”

Jughead expects an outstretched hand but instead, Betty is pulled into a warm hug, released, and then it’s his turn. He catches her eye and rather than looking startled, she seems happy as she announces her name and then his.

“Jughead and Betty,” Caroline repeats with a smile, and he tries to ignore the light feeling in his chest at the sound of someone independent putting their names together with the insinuation that they’re a couple. Maybe they are, he supposes, but they haven’t had that conversation yet and a brief flash of panic flits through him. 

“You look a little like my granddaughter,” Caroline adds. “Blonde hair and pretty green eyes. And you,” she directs towards Jughead. “You’re rather dashing too. I can imagine how lovely you’d both look on that dancefloor.”

“We’re actually on our way to the Keys,” Betty tells her. “But thank you for the offer of a room.” She makes to leave, stepping closer to him and there’s something about the situation that seems sad - like a missed opportunity. He’s never been much into dancing but Betty had sung to that song on the radio first thing that morning; has laughed and smiled the entire time they’ve been in Quitman and he thinks the dance might be they kind of thing they  _ should _ be doing as two people escaping from reality for a while. 

“We can get to Florida tomorrow Betts,” he counters. “The dance is only one night.”

“But you wanted to -” she starts, and he catches her fingers, squeezing gently.

“- Florida can wait.”

“Oh honey,” Caroline gushes. “You listen to your man now; ya’ll probably won’t be here again.”

Jughead wants to tell the woman that she can make her own decisions, but he holds it in, knowing she only means well. Betty steps a little closer, her eyes lifting in a silent question that asks,  _ are you sure? _

He nods and then confirms with Caroline that they’ll stay the night. She beams, clasps her hands and says, “Well come on in and I’ll show you to your room.”

  
  
  
  


The entire place is dripping in what Jughead can only describe as  _ the south. _ He’s never seen so many quilts in one place in all of his life, and that’s including the memories he has of Fangs Fogarty’s grandmother’s trailer back at Sunnyside. Betty seems to like it though, fingering the lace trims at the windows as she looks out across the street. The bed is large - solid mahogany with a tall post at each corner - and he stretches out across it watching her. 

“Caroline said she has something for me to wear tonight,” Betty tells him. 

“Do you need more clothes?” he asks. “We can go shopping if -”

“- It’s not that,” she cuts in gently, joining him on the bed. Her skin has gotten slightly darker over the course of the afternoon, her shoulders dotted with more freckles, and he trails his fingers lightly over it. “Apparently, the dress code for women is cowboy boots.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she grins. “But I’ve kind of always wanted to wear some.” She snuggles into his chest and he kisses her crown as she says, “Thank you.” 

They lie for a while doing nothing other than resting, and Jughead is the first to shower once they have to start getting ready for the dance. It takes a minimal amount of time to redress in what’s probably his only decent set of clothes - they definitely need to find a place to do laundry in Florida - and comb the tangled mass of waves that his hair has become. He waits downstairs in the parlour with a glass of sweet tea he was too polite to decline while Betty showers and Caroline busies herself with “laying out something special.” 

He’s almost a third of his way through the sweet tea when he hears a creak at the top of the stairs and glances up to see Betty looking like a vision in a white dress trimmed with lace, the hem stopping just a little way above her knee. On her feet are cowboy boots that in any other scenario he’d have dismissed as ridiculous, but on her, at that precise moment in time, he thinks nothing has ever looked so perfect. 

“Doesn’t she look beautiful?” Caroline beams, and only when he opens his mouth to speak does Jughead realise how dry it is.

“Absolutely,” he manages, and then - once she’s by his side - he adds, “Always.”

She curls her fingers around his arm and presses closer, tucking herself against his side. “You look handsome too Juggie.”

They follow the sound of the music towards the town hall, its spire poking high above the laden trees and the rooftops of the buildings on Main Street. The streets are still busy, heavy with the sugary scent of grilled peaches and ice cream, and his mouth waters as he remembers how Betty’s lips had tasted earlier after they’d eaten dessert. 

Inside the town hall is a stage on which a band is warming up, the distinctive sound of the fiddle audible above the general chatter and backing music provided by a c.d player. Betty’s hand is in his, warm and light as they make their way to the little makeshift bar in the corner. They both get a beer - there isn’t much choice and the last thing he wants is whisky - and sip at them slowly at the edge of the room.

“Five minutes folks,” one of the band members announces into the microphone, and Betty turns to him, eyes bright when she says,

“I know it’s stupid, but I’m kind of excited.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not stupid at all.”

Jughead wonders what he can do to protect this for her so that when they’re back in New York, the demands of her job and the city don’t overwhelm her to the point that they eclipse all of the good. He has a little longer to figure it out though, especially if they stay in Key West for a few days before heading back. Briefly, he thinks about the emails waiting in his inbox. It should make him happy that he has a number of prospects now - and it does, but he’s also aware that these prospects will take him away from Betty: trips to Europe and South America amongst others - opportunities he can’t pass up. Her fingers brush his knee and he decides it’s a conversation for another day.

Dancing is not Jughead’s strong point. He managed to avoid every high school dance back in Riverdale, and stood on the sidelines at the parties he attended in college. Here though, beneath the strings of lights and with Betty’s hands in his, it doesn’t seem so terrible. 

The band begins their second song - a rendition of Country Girl - and they go again, his fingers laced with hers; smile stretched wide across her face; eyes light with happiness, and Jughead forgets everything about disliking dancing and disliking country music. The band reaches the chorus and Betty does something of a shimmy, her hips rolling as she moves closer, hem of her dress rising, and he realises he’d give up the Keys if it meant she’d wear this smile for the next few days. 

The songs ends and she laughs, wiping the sweat he didn’t know had formed off his brow. “Let’s go get a drink,” she says, and they take up their seats again, their bottles exactly where they’d left them.

“That’s your warm up nearly over folks,” the caller announces into the microphone. “One more and then we’re comin’ for ya!”

They watch the various couples, both young and old, dance to the final song of the warm-up set: hands on shoulders, hands on hips, hands tentatively reaching out for nervous palms, and Betty rests her head back against the top of his arm close to his shoulder. He can smell perfume which he hasn’t smelled before, and he wonders whether she’s used some of Caroline’s. She smells sweet and there’s also a hint of musk - like a summer’s evening. Jughead wants to run his nose along her skin (wants to do more than that when the time’s right too)

“Are you joining the dance?” she asks him.

He hesitates at that. Shuffling from one foot to the other whilst holding Betty’s hands is one thing, but following complicated instructions which involve switching partners (and therefore holding onto someone else) is a whole other ball game he’s not sure he’s ready to play.  

“I don’t know,” he replies. “You go; I’ll watch.”

She hums and narrows her eyes a little at him, but ultimately accepts his response and joins the line when the caller tells all willing participants to take the floor.

  
  
  
  
  


Jughead isn’t sure he’s ever been so glad to have his camera with him. He’s also not entirely sure Betty hasn’t had some sort of country dance training with the way she can execute every single move to perfection. He captures her twirling around, waves of hair with tiny little braids woven into it dancing through the air, and the lens sees the way her cheeks are rosy and her smile is stretched wide and her nose is crinkled in a giggle. She catches his eye part-way through and he feels a jolt of something surge through his veins. Maybe it’s electricity or excitement or maybe it’s something else.

Maybe, he thinks, it’s something like love.

“Okay ya’ll, it’s time to cut a rug with this one!” the caller shouts, and the familiar tune of The Devil Went Down to Georgia sounds out into the hall.

Betty’s feet stomp and swivel along with the other dancers’, her arm circling above her head like a lasso as the fiddle player works overtime and the floor vibrates beneath Jughead’s feet. The band plays an encore: one last go of the final verse and chorus before she joins him, breathless and sweaty and laughing at an old man who mops his brow and takes off his hat to tip in her direction, and he realises in that moment that he  _ does _ love her. He loves her so much he’s not sure he can stand it. 

Without an explanation, he takes her hand and tugs her outside, the air slightly cooler than the hot stickiness of the town hall, and bumps her gently against the wall as he kisses her. He can taste the salt on her lips but he can taste beer too, and a hint of something that might be strawberry or blueberry or something else equally as sweet. 

Betty giggles against his mouth as she clutches the top of his arm, a surprised and content “Juggie,” muffled at his skin. 

_ I think you might be everything, _ he wants to tell her. _ I think you might be everything and I love you. _

But he knows it’s too soon to say that aloud; too close to everything else that’s happened, and so he saves the words for later - for New York, so she’ll have something good there - and tells her instead,

“You’re amazing.”

_ “Jug,” _ she says by way of response, taking two syllables for only three letters as she touches her forehead to his lips. And then, at the hollow of his neck, her breath fans out across his skin as she adds, “There isn’t even a  _ word _ to describe how amazing  _ you _ are.”  

His ears feel hot and he wants to sink his fingers into her skin; wants to love her with everything he has. “Let’s go back to the cottage,” he murmurs. _ Let me love you properly.   _

  
  
  
  
  


The house is quiet when they enter - the little lamp in the window casting soft shadows over the floor. Jughead wonders whether Caroline has gone to bed, or whether she’s out back somewhere. The stair creaks when they reach the top and Betty turns to him, finger pressed to her lips with her eyes crinkling in humour, and he forgets everything but her.

She shuts the door behind them, locks it and then checks three times: her habit. He doesn’t say anything, just waits for her to be done so he can kiss her without anyone else watching.

Her steps towards him are hesitant: her fingers are toying with the material of her dress and when she looks up, he sees the nervousness in her eyes. She takes a breath and then lifts her head, pointing her chin defiantly.

“I want you to.” 

“You sure?” he asks. “We don’t have to -”

“- I want you to,” she repeats again. It echoes the previous night, but there’s something in the air that feels different. Jughead already knows they can’t have sex - it’s too far for where she’s at - but he can love her with his mouth. 

In time, he’ll love her with everything.

Slowly, Betty reaches behind her back and unfastens the buttons, her fingers getting so far before they can’t manage the final few. She looks up from under her eyelashes, and he has no idea whether it’s intentional or not, but  _ God _ it does  _ something _ to him. 

“Can you help?”

He swallows, throat dry and clogged as he gently sweeps her hair over her shoulders. Her skin is warm and he bushes a kiss to the left of the lace strap before loosening the tiny buttons from their holes. When he slips the final one free, he trails his forefinger lightly down her spine and then follows with his lips. She shivers, goosebumps breaking out across her skin and then she begins to peel the dress away.

Her underwear is white too and the whole visual makes his breathing shallow.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, reaching out to skim his fingers over her hips. “So, so beautiful.”

“Jug…”

He exhales, closing his eyes as he steps closer to brush his thumb over her stomach. “Please don’t say you’re not.”

Betty nods and holds out her hands for him to take, her eyes sliding to the bed. He takes the cue and tugs her gently so she’s close enough to feel the mattress on the backs of her knees. It dips as she settles on her back in the centre, fingers toying with one of the buttons on his shirt.

“You’re still wearing all your clothes.”

He helps her with those buttons too, much less careful than he’d been with hers, until he can discard the shirt somewhere on the floor. He removes his jeans too - and his socks - so he’s wearing nothing but his boxers as he settles beside her. 

For a moment, Jughead thinks he might sense panic on her face when she looks at the covered area but it disappears when he kisses her. His hands frame her face, thumbs stroking just below her cheekbones, and a soft sigh passes from her mouth into his.

They kiss without any end goal for a while, alternating between slow and lazy and then slightly more hurried; slightly more pressure; slightly more urgency.

When they break for air, instead of going back to her mouth, he works his way down the column of her neck, sucking just enough that he can feel her pulse ticking beneath his lips; just enough that it feels good without leaving a mark, and then he moves further south until he reaches the thin strip of material linking the cups of her bra.

Lifting his head to gauge her reaction, he asks, “Can I?”

She doesn’t answer with words but arches her back enough that he can slip his hands around to the strap. It takes a couple of tries - his fingers fumble with the clasp, slipping when he realises how hard his heart is thumping - but finally he feels the elastic go slack. Her back flattens against the mattress and he lifts the bra away, mouth turning drier still if it’s even possible. 

Gently, he butterflies kisses across the underside of her left breast, and then repeats his actions on the other side. Her back arches, pushing more of her body towards him and so he continues further south. When he sees her fingers grabbing at the sheet, he sews them together with his, and against the soft warm skin of her stomach, whispers, “I promise I’m not going to hurt you Betty.”

He brings his lips into a kiss which he leaves just below her belly button, and then nuzzles his nose a little closer to her centre, at which she sucks in a breath and tightens her grip on his fingers.

Slowly, Jughead blows out a hot breath over the material of her underwear and something of a quiet _ mmmm _ sounds at the back of her throat. He does it again, and then this time, follows it with a kiss at where her clit is hidden. The noise Betty makes is more of a whimper, and he checks to make sure she’s okay, lifting his head just enough that he can see her eyes are closed. He kisses the inside of her thigh, right in the crease where the edge of her panties sits, and then repeats the process on the other side.

Taking her bra off was one thing, but he’s not sure whether he should ask to remove the triangle of white lace too. They’re already way past where they’d gotten last night, but he wants her to know how good things can feel, and any part of her being uncomfortable will prevent that. Gently, he puts his mouth over her clit and breathes out a burst of hot air. Her hips buck and he feels her fingers squeeze his again.  

He flattens his tongue out so he can suck at the little nub, and Betty moans this time. It does things to both his chest and his dick, and she gasps out his name. Immediately, he lifts his head to find her eyes dark. 

“Take them off.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” she whispers, and Jughead feels her grip loosen so he can pull his hands out of hers. He slides the material down her legs, dropping it somewhere on the floor to the left of the bed. 

Right before he entwines their fingers again, she asks, “You’ll go slow?”

“As slow as you need, baby,” he replies, and feels her tug him upwards so he can kiss her. He does, slowly and with his tongue sliding against hers, until she stills her lips and he knows she wants him to go south again.

He kisses her there first - short and then for a little longer, and then long enough that he begins to work her with his tongue, always slow and gentle. He watches as her stomach muscles pull taut each time he licks upwards, which is what he’s doing when she chokes out a shaky,

“Jug.”

It’s not out of panic though, or pain, or anything else bad. She uses it to tell him something else: she’s going to come.

Jughead hasn’t had a wealth of experience with women, but this is undoubtedly the best thing he’s ever seen. Betty’s eyes are shut tight, her body angled against his face and her fingers white as she grips his tightly, mouth open in a silent cry that gives way to heavy breaths. He presses a final kiss in the crease of her thigh and settles beside her, pulling his hand free so he can comb through her hair.

When she opens her eyes, they’re unsure again; vulnerable in a way they hadn’t been even when she was removing her dress. 

“You okay?” he asks.

She doesn’t answer him for a while, just snuggles close enough that her face is hidden in his chest, and so he strokes through the silken waves slowly, willing his body to calm down so she doesn’t feel in any way that she has to return the favour - that’s not what this was about.

His chest feels damp, and he knows it’s not sweat; knows it’s Betty’s tears falling onto his skin when her shoulders shake against his arms. He doesn’t ask what it is (thinks he already knows anyway) and simply continues to comb through her hair with his fingers. She isn’t wearing any clothes, and he wonders whether he should grab her dress from earlier or her pajamas or one of his t-shirts. When he realises all of those options would mean letting her go, Jughead folds the sheet over them both. It doesn’t quite wrap all the way around him, but she’s covered - safe and snug in white cotton - and that’s what matters.

Outside, a cat makes that strange warning sound all cats do when they’re about to fight, and Betty finally lifts her head, eyes a little red but ultimately, now free from any fresh tears. He kisses beneath each one, and then when her lids sweep down he kisses those too, then her nose until he’s tipping her chin with his knuckle so he can kiss her lips.

“Want me to grab you a t-shirt?” he asks, to which she nods and replies, scratchily,

“Yes please.”

He’s just about to rise from the bed when he feels her take his hand in both of hers, fingertips bending to curve around as much of his skin as they can.

“It was never like this,” she whispers. “With  _ him. _ ”

He isn’t really sure what to say to that: for him, it’s never been like this with  _ anybody. _ Her lips brush a kiss at his shoulder and Jughead’s stomach clenches when feels her words vibrate against his skin. “I want you to make me forget so all I can remember is you.”

When he rejoins her - this time beneath the sheets - she’s wearing his t-shirt and watching him with those doe eyes that make his heart stutter out of rhythm. There are so many words he wants to tell her; so many ways in which he wants to feel his skin against hers, and what he settles on after she’s tucked herself in at his side, is,

“I can’t swim.”

Betty kisses his collarbone and nuzzles her nose into his neck. “When we get to Florida,” she says, “I can teach you if you like.”

“Yeah?”

She lifts her head just enough that she can seal her lips over his. “Yes.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your comments, kudos, bookmarks and messages regarding this story. You guys really are amazing x

_ I feel your warmth _

_ And it feels like home _

 

Jughead drives pretty much solidly for nine hours - save for the two short breaks at gas stations both to fill up the tank and eat sandwiches of questionable freshness. They arrive in Key West a little after eight in the evening, the sun low in the sky and the light almost amber as they roll to a stop outside of a little cottage painted yellow. He’s very obviously trying to hide his tiredness, and Betty rubs her hand across his knee, squeezing gently as a thank you. He takes that hand and kisses her fingers and she feels her heart squeeze too.   

“C’mon,” he says quietly. “I bet we’ll see the ocean out back.”

She follows him, wondering at this point whether she’d simply follow him anywhere. He waits with his hand outstretched behind him so she can link her fingers in with his, and then lets her lean against his shoulder as he types in the key code from his phone so they can get through the door. 

He’d showed her the pictures of the cottage online when they’d been lying in bed that morning, something like excitement in his eyes as he’d told her about its proximity to the beach, the hot tub on the veranda, and - above all else - how private it seemed. They have it for three days and then they’ll begin the long journey back to New York, but Betty tells herself she isn’t going to think about that now. It’s easier said than done of course, but she doesn’t act on the anxiety ticks each time they surface, and her palms stay crescent-free.

“After you Betts,” he says, placing a hand on her back as she steps into the cottage. Everything is painted white and there are french doors leading to the veranda. Her legs take her over to them before she’s even registered what she’s doing, and that’s when she sees the view. There’s a small backyard framed by palm trees, but just beyond that is a stretch of white sand and water which she already knows will be turquoise when she wakes in the morning. 

“Jug,” she gasps, turning to face him. He’s still standing by the front door watching her, but crosses to meet her by the other side of the house. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to -” he starts, but she presses her fingers softly to his lips and shakes her head. “I do.” And then she kisses him. His hands come up to frame her face, fingertips sinking into the skin at the back of her neck, and her arms break out in goosebumps. 

She’ll never ever tire of being kissed like this, she thinks. 

When they break apart, his eyes are still closed and Betty watches as they stay that way for a few moments, only blinking open after he’s let out a contented sigh.

“There are other rooms,” he says quietly.

_ Bedrooms _ is what he means, she knows. There are bedrooms; she can pick.

The rooms all lead off from where they’re standing - the house is pretty open and airy, and she opens the door to a bedroom with a large four-poster bed edged with thin white drapes. It has a little bathroom belonging to it, with white tiles and two sinks that she pictures Jughead brushing his teeth beside her at. 

The second of the two bedrooms is a little smaller, but with an equally decadent-looking bed and sliding doors that open out onto the veranda. It doesn’t have its own bathroom and she knows it isn’t meant to be the master, but it has a certain charm about it that Betty finds endearing. 

When she turns, she finds Jughead leaning against the doorway, watching her again. His eyes are light despite the red around them - more evidence of his tiredness - as he asks,

“This one?”

“This one,” she confirms, and crosses to wrap her arms around him; to snuggle into his chest so she can nuzzle her nose against his t-shirt and breathe in that smell of his. Her stomach growls quietly, catching her off-guard, and she feels his chest shake as he chuckles. 

“We should order food.”

Betty shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

“You’re hungry.”

“ _ You’re _ tired.”

“Baby,” he murmurs into her hair, and  _ God, _ her stomach flips when he says that word like that. “There are two loungers out there, and a view of the ocean. I can sleep later.”

She pulls back - only slightly - so she can look up at him. “We’ll order in tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll cook.”

Jughead grins and she rests her head on his chest again momentarily, breathing in deeply before reluctantly pulling back all the way. _ I don’t like letting you go, _ she wants to tell him.  _ I don’t  _ want  _ to let you go.  _

“You like Thai?” he aks. “I could eat some Tom Kha Gai.”

She has no idea what that is, but she’s had her fair share of Thai omelettes in the past when carbs have been a no-go. “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she tells him, and he pulls out his phone as she heads to collect their bags from the entrance. 

  
  
  
  
  


They don’t even use both loungers. Jughead rests against the back of one, legs on the edge, and Betty sits cross-legged in the centre so they can share the containers of food. She has no idea of the names of any of the dishes he’s picked, nor does she know the calorie count either (not that she wants to) but they’re all equally delicious and when she leans back for Jughead to kiss her, his lips taste like mango. His hands stroke at her arms as he moves his mouth over hers, and then they move to her hips, his fingertips ghosting over the material of her dress so that goosebumps break out across her skin. 

She turns, rising to her knees so she can smooth her own fingers across his skin, tracing the outline of his jaw as his lips coax hers wide enough that he can slip his tongue into her mouth. 

Betty sighs quietly at the feel of it all: at the way his hands and mouth burn her skin and give her chills at the same time; the way he’s strong and gentle and soft and hard when he touches her. 

“Juggie,” she gasps when they break for air, and she’s not even sure what she means other than - possibly -  _ don’t stop. _

He  _ does _ stop though, pausing in the slow skim of his fingers over her shoulder blades to say,

“We should go inside.”

They gather the food containers and set them on the counter in the kitchen. It’s the first time she can ever remember not tidying away there and then, and it doesn’t weigh on her chest when they close the bedroom door behind them like she expects it might. 

The open window allows a gentle breeze to filter into the room, catching the voile drapes so they dance against the wall, and she watches as Jughead closes it, pulling down the blinds. It’s private, but he clearly isn’t taking any chances.

The air suddenly feels thick and heavy with anticipation, her breathing short and shallow. He sits on the bed, scooting back against the pillows and when he holds out a hand, Betty joins him. 

He peels off her dress, pausing to skim his hands over the skin not covered by her underwear, and then lets her help him out of his clothes too so that both of them are the most naked they’ve been at the same time. She’s on her knees and so is he, her arms looping around his neck as he kisses her soft and slow. Something of a sigh tumbles out of her mouth but he swallows it before it’s released into the air, his lungs breathing in what hers give out. 

After a while, she tears her lips from his so they can make their journey down his neck, along his collarbone, down his chest as her hands explore the rest of his skin, touching gently at his abs and then the waistband of his underwear.

“Baby,” he chokes as she cups him over his boxers. He’s already hard and she can see the conflict on his face when she opens her eyes to look up. “You don’t have to.”

She knows that. And that’s why she  _ wants _ to. “Let me,” she says, slipping her hand beneath the material. “Please.”

His breath is shaky and rough when he exhales, and she removes her hand so she can tug down his underwear. His dick bobs free and just for a second, she has a flashback of her apartment and Chic and those eyes of his. But as quickly as it comes, it goes again, and she settles herself on her knees between Jughead’s legs, thumb instinctively rubbing over the head with its small bead of precum. A moan vibrates at the back of his throat and then Betty lowers her head, taking him in her mouth only a little at first, then deeper until every inch of him is either inside of her mouth or her hand.

The sound he makes curves her lips into a smile, a throaty “Fuck,” hanging in the air as she grips him a little harder. She hasn’t done this all too often - and she has no idea exactly how he likes it - but when he groans again as she swirls her tongue around his shaft, she knows she hasn’t got it wrong. 

Betty licks and sucks and strokes her way around him, experimenting with pace and pressure until he breathes,

“Fuck baby. I can’t…”

Her left hand leaves its place on the mattress and comes to rest on the inside of his thigh, rubbing backwards and forwards slowly as he shudders and gasps, “I‘m gonna…”

She feels him push gently at her shoulder and she lifts her mouth off of him, stroking with her right hand as he spills over and onto the sheets with his eyes tightly closed.

  
  
  
  
  


She wakes slowly, cocooned in warmth. It’s Jughead’s arms, she already knows, holding her against him. He’s still asleep when she opens one of her eyes, blinking into the bright light of morning. He looks peaceful; younger than she’s used to seeing him, and Betty worries briefly that  _ she’s _ been the one to do that - make him look older with all of the concerns he has over her. She snuggles closer, trying to push those thoughts away and succeeds when he stirs, tightening his arms around her a little before he mumbles something that she thinks is supposed to be “Good morning.”

“You’re so warm,” she tells him, pressing a kiss to his bare chest. 

His response is an incoherent mumble but she can feel his fingers begin to wake and clutch at the hem of her t-shirt. Or, she supposes, it’s  _ his  _ t-shirt, given that he actually owns it, and although it might not be the most hygenic item of clothing she could wear for bed (they really  _ do  _ need to do laundry) it smells like him and is comforting in a way her own pajamas aren’t.

Jughead shifts to kiss her, planting his hands on each of her hips so he can lift her up until their lips are level. His mouth moves over hers without any hurry, tongue stroking at the entrance which makes hers open wider without conscious thought. The more he runs his hands over her skin, the more Betty can feel herself pressing against him until she has her legs open around his bent knee and she’s moaning quietly into his mouth. 

His hands travel up her thigh, pausing at the edge of her panties as he pulls back, eyes searching hers. She nods and leans in to kiss him again: a silent  _ I want to, _ and she moans once more as his fingertips skim over her clit.

She can feel wetness pooling between her legs as he strokes over her, his fingers separated from her warm flesh by cotton underwear. She keens when he dips beneath the material, her hips rising to meet his hand, and all she wants is for him to put his mouth on her like he did back in the bed and breakfast. 

“Juggie please,” she practically whimpers, and he halts in his kissing to grin.

“God, when you say my name like that...” he starts, but doesn’t finish. She kisses him once, twice, and then again with a little more impatience until his hands hook in the sides of her panties to pull them down. 

Jughead sinks with them, his mouth butterflying kisses onto the skin of her lower stomach where his t-shirt has ridden up. He stops only when his mouth is level with her centre, blowing out a breath that has Betty’s hips lifting off of the mattress. He plants a kiss there first and she waits for the  _ more _ she knows is coming, breath caught high in her throat.

And then he gives her it; gives her  _ everything _ as he licks upwards in a long, slow line from her opening to her clit. The moan that leaves her mouth is louder than she can ever remember moaning, and he does it again and then again until she wonders how long she’s supposed to last if he continues like that. His tongue massages her, alternating between hard and soft so she doesn’t know what’s coming next, just knows that it’ll be  _ her _ before long.

Their fingers aren’t sewn together this time, and Betty feels his hands slide upwards over her hips, beneath the cotton t-shirt she’s wearing until they brush her nipples and her back arches further upwards. Her fingers clutch at the sheet, needing something to grip for leverage as he flicks his tongue and then curls it so it dips inside of her. She comes apart instantly, feeling a rush between her legs that makes her want to simultaneously clamp them shut and press herself further against his mouth. 

In the end, she doesn’t really do either because Jughead doesn’t pull away, just presses intermittent kisses at her clit; the creases of her parted thighs; the place at the bottom of her stomach where her underwear would usually sit, until she sinks back down against the mattress. 

“Jug,” she says, not really sure of what she means by it until he reaches for her hand, squeezing it once their fingers are linked and says, 

“I know.”

He surfaces again, inching back up the bed until he’s planting kisses between her breasts, that t-shirt of his hitched all the way up to her collarbone. She rakes her fingers through his hair and he lifts his head again, mouth landing back on hers and then her nose and then her forehead. 

_ Forehead kisses are when you know a guy really likes you, _ her sister had told her once. Betty looks at the man next to her and thinks,  _ I hope she’s right. _

  
  
  
  
  


They forgo venturing out in favour of ordering from Cuban Coffee Queen, which a quick google search tells them has the best cafe con leche in the Keys. Jughead opts for the breakfast burrito with chorizo and she has the pan cubano, wincing a little when it comes with butter dripping from the side and a pool of it on the accompanying napkin.

They eat out on the veranda with the breeze from the ocean blowing the palm trees so they sway, and unlike the previous night, they sit on separate loungers, legs stretched out in the sun. 

“Coffee’s good Betts,” he tells her after taking a sip.

She tries hers too, licking her lips free of the foam. He’s right of course - it’s definitely the best she’s had. Betty can see him watching her as he eats, and she wonders what he’s thinking. He’s already shirtless, dressed after his shower in only swim shorts, and from the corner of her eye she can see the faint outline of his abs. It makes her mouth water and turn dry all at the same time, and she takes another sip of her coffee.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s good.”

After they finish eating, they sit for a while just enjoying the sound of the waves a little way beyond the palms. She remembers how - not so long ago - she hated this kind of quiet, petrified of the thoughts that might consume her if she were to remain in it too long. Now though, things are different. 

They’re different because of Jughead.

“Jug?” she asks him, shifting so she’s lying on her side facing him. 

He turns to do the same, slipping his hand under his cheek. “Yeah?”

“Do you think we could find a store so I can get some ingredients to make dinner tonight?”  _ I want to make you something, _ she almost says. _ I want to thank you. I want to take  _ you _ on a date.   _

“Of course. You have something in mind?”

She shrugs and feels a coy smile tug at her lips. “Maybe.”

He reaches his hand across the small space between them so he can tilt her chin with his finger. “Maybe?” He’s already leaning towards her and Betty knows what’s coming next. His lips capture hers and they’re soft and warm as she smiles against his mouth. It means she can’t quite kiss him properly but he doesn’t seem to mind. 

“I have something in mind,” she admits with a blush she can’t prevent. His exhale is audible over the gentle tumbling of the waves, and his smile stretches all the way up to his eyes. 

They visit the laundromat first, filling two machines with their shared lights and darks, talking about anything and everything as they wait for each load to finish before they can transfer the items to the dryer. 

“Did you always want to be a photographer?” she asks.

“No. I didn’t even think about what I wanted to be until it was nearly too late. Just knew I wanted to get the hell away from Riverdale.”

She slides her hand over his bare knee and rubs gently back and forth. “I’m sorry Jug.”

“It’s not like you had it much easier,” he says. “And to answer your question properly, I always thought I’d be a writer. I wrote this stupid novel back in high school that -”

“-You wrote a book?! Did you get it published?”

He scoffs like it’s the most ridiculous question he’s ever heard. “Of course not.”

“Not _ of course not, _ ” she admonishes gently. “What was it about?”

“The captain of the football team’s body was found in the town’s river. Turns out his own father shot him. I basically rewrote the story of what happened.”

“Like a crime novel?”

Jughead tilts his head a little to the side, like she’s the first person to have ever asked and he can’t quite believe she’s interested.

“Almost, I guess,” he answers with a shrug. “But then I sort of stumbled across photography and I wasn’t too bad at it, and so that’s what I majored in.” 

Betty squeezes his knee. “I think you’re a little more than  _ not too bad at it  _ Juggie.”

“I found this camera at this second hand store,” he tells her, brushing past her praise without acknowledging it. She wonders if his self-depreciation is as a result of his nature, or if it’s because nobody’s really celebrated his achievements in the past. “Saved all the money I earned from my paper round and finally had enough to buy it. The lens was a little scratched but I cleaned it off as best I could and then I just started taking more and more photographs.”

“What did you use as your subjects?” she asks, shifting closer so she can rest her head against his shoulder. 

He drops a kiss in her hair and answers. “The streets mainly. The trailer park I lived at. The river when the weather was bad.”

“Darkness,” she muses, not entirely sure she’s said it aloud until Jughead exhales into her hair and murmurs,

“There’s lots of it just beneath the surface.”

“I was going to be a reporter,” Betty tells him after a while. “Break these insane news stories about government cover-ups and politics for the New York Times.”

She feels his nose nuzzle against her crown: his _ I’m sorry you didn’t get your dream. _

The dryers finish and for a moment, Betty waits just pressed against him so she can silently tell him it’s okay - she’s made her peace with how things worked out. She turns her face into his shoulder to press a kiss there, and then gets up to remove their clothes from the first machine. Jughead takes the second and they fold everything into neat piles to fit inside the holdall and backpack they’ve brought.

They take it back to the little house and Betty unpacks everything, setting it all in the chest of drawers opposite the bed. It feels oddly domestic - comforting in a way she hadn’t anticipated - and she finds her mind drifting to what things  _ could  _ be at some point way in the future.

He’s reading his book when she steps beyond the open doors onto the veranda, twirling the wave of hair that constantly flops into his eyes round and round his index finger. She watches him for a while, unaware that he knows of her presence until he jokes,

“It’s rude to stare.”

“Sorry,” she apologises, blush colouring her cheeks as she sits on the neighbouring lounger. 

He reaches out to take her fingers, bringing them to his lips to kiss before he says, “Don’t be.”

Rather than pick up her own book, she lays down, adjusting the position of the bed until she’s flat on her back and she can close her eyes. This time, Betty can sense him watching her, and she lifts an eye to catch him in the act.

“What were you just saying about staring being rude?”

“I’ll take my punishment,” he replies as his eyes sweep the length of her legs. “It’ll be worth it.”

  
  
  
  
  


After a light lunch, they head beyond the backyard palms to the beach for the first time, Jughead in nothing other than his bathing suit, Betty in hers too, with the old sundress from when they were in Yellow Springs thrown over the top. He’d been right when he said it was private: there is nobody there but them.

She unfolds her towel, laying it down before removing the dress and folding it to make a pillow. Jughead watches her with a smile and she almost wants to cover herself back up with the way he looks at her. 

But then he murmurs, “You’re beautiful,” just loud enough for her to hear over the waves’ tumbling, and she lets him look without apology.

“Juggie,” she says softly, meaning  _ so are you.  _

They lie under the intense heat in content quiet, eyes closed and towels touching at the edges so they’re no further than six inches apart, and Betty thinks _ this is what peace feels like.  _

Every so often, she can feel Jughead’s fingers twitch against her towel, and when they do it again she laces them with her own. His thumb strokes over her skin like this is what he’s been waiting for - her hand in his - and she shifts so she’s closer. It’s almost hard to lie there with him, knowing what they did last night and this morning in bed and not acting on that again. She knows she wants to go further with him; is hoping that after dinner tonight, he won’t be so careful with her that they don’t go beyond what they’re already done.

Heat blooms in her cheeks and between her legs and she presses her thighs closer together. She hasn’t felt like this before, like sex is something exciting and completely wonderful, and she knows it’s only because it’s with Jughead. 

“You’re going to have to stop doing that baby,” he tells her quietly. Betty flushes all over and he lifts an eyelid, grinning at her. “My body makes it a little more obvious than yours.”

Her cheeks are aflame with embarrassment but Jughead chuckles throatily and lifts her chin with his forefinger. “Tonight,” he tells her. “Only if you still want to.”

She leans close enough so she can kiss him, taking his bottom lip between hers and sucking which results in something like a groan leaving his mouth. He pulls away after a minute or so, eyes much darker than she’s ever seen. He scrubs a hand over his face and then looks at the water.

“I should probably cool off before…” he doesn’t finish, rising from his towel as he adjusts his bathing suit shorts. 

She knows he can’t swim, so it’s not like he can go too deep, and she watches him for a few minutes, willing her own body to calm down before she joins him, ready to fulfill the promise of teaching him how to swim.

“Do you trust me?” Betty asks as she takes his hands in hers and leads him further out until the water reaches his waist. 

His voice is soft when he says, “Of course.”

“Okay. I want you to put that trust in the water too.”

“That’s -”

“- Please Juggie?” she asks, exploiting the fact she knows he likes her calling him that. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The words echo some of those that he’s spoken towards her before, and he must realise it because he squeezes her hand and nods. “Okay.”

“You’re going to lie on your back,” she tells him, “So you can feel how the water allows you to float.”

Tentatively, he leans backwards and she places her arm beneath the bottom of his back, ready to support should he need it. “And take your feet off of the floor,” she requests, placing her other hand at the back of his head. “I’ve got you.”

Jughead does as she says and they stay like that for a minute or so before she removes both of her hands so he’s floating completely on his own.

“There,” she smiles. “Hardest part’s over.”

The expression on his face tells her he doesn’t quite believe this - nor is he completely comfortable - but for a first go she figures this is a success. He plants his feet back on the sandy bed and stands up, and Betty kisses him despite the salt water on his lips. “You were great.” And then, when he’s opened his eyes again, she says, “Let’s try actual swimming now.”

It takes much longer than floating had for Jughead to get the hang of it, but much splashing and grumbling later - not forgetting the desperate clinging onto her he’d done at the start - he finally manages to swim around eight meters without stopping to put his feet down. She walks beside him the whole time, voicing words of encouragement and praise, and then kisses him again when he stands wearing a proud grin he quickly tries to subdue. 

“Okay now I’m starving,” he announces. 

Betty laughs. “We can go to the store to get ingredients for dinner once we’ve taken our towels back.”

He takes her hand again as they wade towards the shore, stroking with his thumb as he says, “You know you don’t have to cook, right? We can go out or order in.”

“I want to,” she replies. “I want to make something for you that you’ll like.”

“Betts,” he exhales, stopping to frame her face in his hands. “That’s…. I…”

“I want to,” she repeats again, and then leans in to kiss him. His eyes are watching her when she pulls away, and his adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he opens his mouth as though he’s about to say something.

Nothing comes out until, very scratchily, he tells her, “I really like chicken.”

  
  
  
  


Once she’s finished making everything and the food is keeping warm in the oven, Betty heads for another shower, making sure to shave her legs and bikini line extra carefully, the coconut-scented conditioner softening her hair after the salt water and sand had dried it out earlier. Jughead had laid the table as she’d been simmering the chicken breasts in the lime-chilli sauce, and she expects he’s now somewhere reading his book or looking through the few photographs he took of the ocean earlier.

She puts on the light blue dress and leaves her hair to dry in the waves he likes. Her feet are bare and she leaves them that way rather than choose between the only two pairs of shoes she has with her. 

When she heads back out into the kitchen, Jughead is resting against the counter with a bunch of flowers in his hand. Betty can already tell from the cellophane that he’s bought these ones, and she wonders when he managed it. 

“You look beautiful,” he tells her, stepping away from the counter so he can hand her the flowers and brush a kiss against her cheek.

It’s like they didn’t just spend the day together; like they didn’t see each other only a half hour ago, and her stomach somersaults in the best way. He’s wearing his button-down again, fresh from the laundry, and she cups a hand at his jaw.

“Thank you.”

“These are for you,” he adds, handing over the little bundle of camellias. “Hopefully they’ll last a little longer than the others.”

The others - the ones he’d picked from beside the lake - had wilted quickly, giving up completely in the hot heat of the Pontiac while the two of them were exploring the peach festival. Betty had felt a little sad at putting them in the trash, but he’d promised there’d be more.

And here he is - delivering. 

“They’re so pretty,” she says, taking them to set in a tall glass on the window sill. “You should sit down - the food’s almost ready.”

The chair scrapes on the floor and Betty takes the coconut rice from the oven, setting the dish on the little trivet beside the stove top. 

“It smells amazing,” Jughead says, and she grins, lifting the lid off of the chicken. That smells good too. She stirs the sauce in a rotating figure of eight and turns off the low heat it’s been keeping warm on while she was getting ready. 

After plating a relatively modest portion for herself, she then scoops a large spoonful of rice onto Jughead’s plate and sets the curry beside it, sprinkling with a few cilantro leaves that she tears over the dish. It looks pretty good, and she smiles as she carries both plates across to the table where he’s waiting. 

“Wow!” he breathes, sniffing appreciatively. “Are you sure you wanted to be a journalist and not a chef?”

She sits and picks up her fork. “I always figured cooking to a tight schedule might be quite stressful.”

He seems to consider her response for a moment and then says, “Probably.” He grunts in appreciation when he places the forkful of curry and rice in his mouth, chewing a little and telling her with his mouth full, “This is so good Betts.”

It makes her more happy than it probably should, and she pops her own forkful beyond her lips, chewing and swallowing with that carefully practised control she learned a long time ago. She thinks he might notice it - and her small portion of calorie-laden chicken and rice - but he doesn’t bring it up, and for that she’s grateful. 

He pours the wine and they take small sips until Betty can feel it settling in her limbs, after which those sips turn into mouthfuls and the food doesn’t have quite as much flavour as it did previously. Jughead doesn’t seem to be affected by the alcohol, and she reminds herself to go slow so she won’t be too far gone when they go to bed later. The last thing she wants is for him to think that it’s the  _ wine  _ that’s made her want to be with him.

They eat slowly, discussing plans for photography opportunities the following day, and Betty finds her foot winding around his. Suddenly, the feel of his skin against hers is all she can focus on, and she places her knife and fork together, a couple of mouthfuls of rice still left on her plate. 

“You’ve had enough?” Jughead asks.

She toys with the stem of her glass before taking a sip. “Yes.” 

The word comes out thicker than she’d thought it would, and he pauses in his chewing. She knows he’s noticed. He swallows his mouthful and takes a sip of his own wine. “Dessert?”

The top two buttons of his shirt are open and Betty can see his chest; can remember how he’d looked in only his bathing suit; can remember how he’d looked in bed the previous evening when she’d taken him in her mouth. She presses her thighs together.

“No.”

He sets down his fork. “Me neither.”

Somehow, she gains enough composure to clear away the plates, and they take the remaining wine outside to enjoy on the loungers. Jughead sits with his back against the wood and then opens his legs so she can sit between them, her back pressed against his chest. He’s warm and smells of woody cologne when she breathes him in, and she smiles when she feels him plant a kiss on the back of her head. 

They’re both content not to say much, each of them taking sips of riesling as the sun sinks below the horizon and the light gradually changes from gold to a blueish hue. Betty is swallowing when the fingers of his left hand begin to stroke her leg softly, trailing slowly upwards from her knee to the inside of her thigh, beneath the hem of her dress. They don’t wander too far but she feels her pulse spike all the same as her mind reminds her of where they  _ have _ gone before now. She shifts against his chest and leans her head back, eyes closing as his fingers skirt further around the inside of her thigh and her legs fall a little further apart. 

Vaguely, she registers the sound of his glass against the little table between the two loungers, and then he smooths back her hair with his newly free hand so that the left side of her neck is exposed. His lips trail kisses from just below her ear down until they reach the strap of her dress, and her own fingers go to his leg, curling against the material of his pants. Betty stands it for so long before she turns, rising to her knees so she can straddle his legs in order to kiss him back properly. Jughead’s hands are in her hair, pushing back the waves as hers tangle in those dark curls at the back of his neck. She presses herself closer and then all of a sudden, she’s being lifted, her legs folding around his waist as he stands with her in his arms. 

Jughead kisses her neck, sucking lightly at her pulsepoint as he walks them both towards the bedroom, fumbling blindly for the door handle which he eventually manages to turn. 

She doesn’t remember being held as a child - not really - but even if she did, she doubts anyone would’ve ever put her down more gently than the way in which he lays her in the centre of the bed. Her head is against the pillows as Jughead removes his shirt and settles above her, kissing first her cheeks and then her lips before he works his way down the column of her neck to her collarbone. He laves the dip in her sternum with his tongue and her hips rise up to meet his, legs opening wider again. 

Betty’s overcome with how much she wants him; how much she wants him anywhere and everywhere all at once, and there’s instantly too much material in the way. She tries to move so she can remove the dress - tries shimmying until the hem is above her hips and she can tug it over her head - but Jughead stops her, tearing his lips from her skin so he can say,

“Let me.”

His eyes are watching her face and she wants to kiss them for being so kind, for never judging her even when they had every right to, but they close again as he drops his lips once more - this time to the tiny strip of skin that’s exposed above the line of her underwear. His fingers then tug the dress gently as she lifts her back off of the mattress to help him slide the material upwards and over her head. He deposits it somewhere on the floor and then unhooks her bra too, fingers making deft work of the clasp so that her breasts fall free. It joins her dress on the floor and then he goes right back to kissing her.  

His kisses are a little more urgent than they’d been in the morning - more urgent than they’d been outside too - and Betty feels more heat flushing her body as her heart rate picks up. Jughead gets closer to where the final piece of material is covering her, fingers hooking into each side of her underwear so he can slip it down over her ass. His hands skim her bare hips and she shivers at the feel of the pads of his thumbs. They’re rougher today - perhaps a result of the drying salt air - but they feel even better than they have in the past. 

“Your pants,” she tells him, fingers reaching out towards the button. “Take them off.”

He does, making quick work of the zipper before she helps push them down his legs and off the bottom of the bed. She can see his arousal - can feel it against the inside of her thigh too - and again her pulse spikes.

When he resettles, it’s with his mouth over her clit and his tongue sucking at the little raised bump, and Betty’s mouth falls open in a gasp. She can feel the curve of his lips pulled upwards in a smile before his tongue draws a line upwards from her entrance. Her back arches and Jughead draws her right leg over his shoulder, smoothing along her skin with his left hand as he angles his head and repeats the same action, her gasp turning into more of a moan that starts with a J and ends in a G. 

Somehow, his right hand manages to slide over the curve of her waist and up to her breasts, thumb brushing over her nipple until every muscle in her body is waiting for his tongue to send her over the edge. 

It does, not more than a minute or two later, and Betty comes with her back arched and her fingers gripping his arms. 

Once her breathing settles enough that she can speak, she turns so she’s lying on her side. Realisation suddenly hits that she’s not been taking her birth control since New York.

“Do you have,” she starts, closing her eyes as he brushes his mouth over the crease of her thigh. “Protection?” Her body is already bowing towards him. “Condoms?”

He pauses briefly to admit that he’d gotten some when he’d bought her the flowers earlier - just in case - and his cheeks are flushed red as he dips his head like he should be ashamed.

“Where is it?” she asks.

His dick is pitching his boxers and Betty isn’t sure she’s ever needed  _ anything _ like she needs to feel him inside her. “Wallet,” he replies, already leaving the space between her thighs to collect what they need.

When he returns, she reaches out to kiss him and then helps him out of his underwear, her right hand stroking him slowly as he opens the little foil packet. She watches as Jughead pinches the tip and then rolls the condom on, and she takes a deep breath as he positions himself at her entrance. 

“We don’t have to baby,” he says. “Really.”

“I want it,” she tells him. “I want it with you.”

“I’ll go slow,” he promises, dropping a kiss to the valley between her breasts. “Tell me, if -”

She cuts in with her voice a whisper. “- Okay.”

He pushes into her slowly, pausing to let her body adjust every time an inch of him disappears inside of her until he’s buried all the way. She feels so full of him that she almost can’t breathe, but then he rocks slowly, dropping his head to her shoulder and she thinks _ this is how it’s supposed to be.  _

  
  
  
  
  


“You should be asleep baby,” Jughead tells her as he draws indistinguishable patterns on her arm. 

“Mmm,” she murmurs against the bare skin of his chest - acknowledging but not agreeing. 

Maybe she  _ should _ be asleep, but so should he and she tells him as such. What she  _ doesn’t _ tell him is that she’s fighting it so she doesn’t miss anything. They only have one more night before they have to head home, and it won’t be like this, she knows, back in New York. It’s silent other than the crickets and the waves outside, and Betty listens to the orchestra of those noises mixed with their synchronised breathing.

“Hey Betts?” Jughead whispers, pausing in the stroking of his fingertips along her arms.

“What is it?”

“I had an idea for a photographic series. One that focuses on mental health.” She hears him swallow. “On self-harm.”

Betty lifts her head from where it’s resting to look at him. It’s dark but she can easily make out his features and the way his eyes are shining. 

“I wondered what you might think.”

Her fingers trace his cheekbone and she leans down to kiss his lips. “I think that if you can help anyone else even a fraction of the way you’ve helped me, then it’s a great idea Jug.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, her nose nudging his. “Yeah.”


	15. Chapter 15

_ See it in a new sun rising  _

_ See it break on your horizon  _

_ Oh, come on love; stay with me _

 

The breeze catches the curtains so they dance against the painted floorboards of the bedroom and Jughead thinks about where he might be this time the following morning or the morning after that.

(Or the morning one or two or three months after _ that _ )

What he knows for certain is that wherever it is, it’s not going to be the bed he’s currently lying in, Betty curled at his side and her legs tangled in with his. He brushes a straying wave of hair away from her cheek so that it sits behind her ear and she smiles, her cheeks rising so he can feel it beneath his fingertips. 

His body is tired in the best way, stated from pleasure. Betty’s fingers are stroking patterns over his abdomen as she blinks against his neck, and he knows he doesn’t want to leave the mattress any time soon (if ever) Even the thought of photographing her on the beach doesn’t quite win out over the feel of her warm, bare skin on his and the sound of her crying his name as her body bows under his hands.

Kissing Betty Cooper is one thing. Pleasuring her with his hands, his mouth (his _ dick _ ) is something else.  

“I’ll miss this,” she admits quietly. 

Jughead drops a kiss to her forehead. “Me too.” Now that he’s shared a bed with her, he’s not sure how he’s supposed to go back to sleeping alone.

“But we still have today,” she murmurs against his skin. “And I kind of like how today started.”

He feels his lips curve into a shit-eating grin, and doesn’t bother to do a thing about it. Betty angles her head back so she can look at him and lifts her chin so he’ll kiss her. “I kind of like how today started too,” he says, and then leans in to seal his mouth over hers. 

They kiss languidly for in indeterminable amount of time that’s marked only by the growing fraction of light against the opposite wall. When that’s over - and only because they both run out of air - Jughead nuzzles his nose and mouth at the dip between her breasts, pressing kisses now and again that lead nowhere other than where they are. 

It’s late in the morning once they’ve showered and found somewhere to eat breakfast - this time a little bakery that sells croissants and cinnamon rolls alongside fruit salad and wheatgrass smoothies. 

Betty is halfway through her portion of fruit when someone recognises her, squealing and excitedly announcing,

“It’s Betty Cooper!”

Jughead’s heart sinks at the realisation that on their last day, every moment of peace she’s had since they left Charleston could be spoiled. He watches as she slows her chewing to a pause before managing a hard swallow. Heads have turned and he wants to whisk her out of there to the privacy of their little veranda so she can eat her mango-kiwi-papaya mix without people staring. He knows as soon as they reach New York she’s likely to have this anyway, but he wishes he could’ve preserved her calm for just one more day.

“Can we get a picture?” one of the fans asks, and of course Betty obliges. 

_ At least let her finish her breakfast, _ he wants to tell them, but his lips remain closed as he asks with his eyes whether she’s okay. The single nod and little smile she offers in return tells him that she  _ is, _ but it doesn’t make him feel much more than only slightly less uneasy about the situation.

It feels like betrayal when he’s the one who takes the picture, waiting until Betty looks directly at him before he hits the centre of the screen to capture the shot. The two fans thank her and leave, but the damage is done. She’s now the subject of everyone’s attention and they finish the rest of their breakfast in a sort-of carefully balanced quiet discussion about movies they’ve seen, but neither of them really care much about whether remakes are a waste of everyone’s time. Usually, he’d debate this topic more heatedly than is probably normal for a guy in his mid-twenties. Today, he has no such desire.  

“You want to go?” he asks her when she’s finished her coffee and the last remaining piece of mango.

Betty nods and offers him a smile, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. When they leave the bakery, she doesn’t entwine her fingers with his and Jughead can’t help but wonder whether every good thing this trip has brought is over.

  
  
  
  
  


She’s quiet for the rest of the day. They take a look around some of the little stores at her insistence, though he has absolutely no interest in looking at tacky fridge magnets and flip flops in an assortment of offensive colours. 

Back at the house, behind the security of the coded front door and the private stretch of sand, Betty visibly relaxes. Jughead worries for a moment that her palms might have fresh crescents on them, but when he lays his own over them, they’re clean and smooth and he lets out a silent breath. 

“I’m sorry this morning was ruined,” she admits quietly. 

The copy of  _ The Maltese Falcon _ tumbles to the floor as she takes a seat on the edge of his lounger so he can tug her against him.

“Betts,” he sighs, “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

It’s her turn to sigh as she fiddles with the neckline of his t-shirt. “I know, but I’m still sorry all the same.”

“It’s not like the whole morning was ruined.”

She tilts her head back to look at him.

“I mean, it started off pretty damn amazing, and I don’t know about you but not much could spoil _ that. _ ”

His words make her smile - a proper one this time that reaches her eyes - and he thinks again of how it had felt to press against her, completely devoid of any clothing; thinks too of her soft moans into the pillow as he’d run his hands up her thigh and stroked into her. 

“Have you thought about what you might do?” he chances, “When we get back?”

“About what?”

Jughead swallows.  _ Us. The apartment you share with your now ex-boyfriend. _ “Work.” 

She leans further into him so he can no longer read her face. “If my agent doesn’t kill or fire me first, I probably owe her a fragrance deal at the very least.”

“Owe her?” her questions. “Baby, you don’t  _ owe _ anyone  _ anything. _ ”

Betty scoffs as though he’s being ridiculous. “I left the city without telling her, and halfway through shooting for a campaign too. I basically didn’t show up for work.”

“But -”

“- I don’t regret taking this trip,” she cuts in. “Not at all Jug.” Her fingers stroke along his forearms and he wonders how he’s supposed to survive when they can’t do _ this _ all the time. “But I’m not naive enough to know there won’t be consequences for it.”

He hates that: that there’ll be  _ consequences.  _ This trip, he thinks, is a consequence in itself. He suspects they’re here predominantly not because of Chic, but because that came on top of everything else caused by her work. Those cheekbones that seemed razor-sharp when he first met her - that had practically hollowed out her cheeks by the time they left for Philadelphia - aren’t quite so prominent now, and as much as her own mother might disagree, he’d rather that didn’t change. She’ll always be beautiful, yes, but she’s even more so like this: healthy.    

“You don’t have to be a model, Betty, if you don’t want to be.”

She pulls away, somewhat exasperated. “What else am I supposed to do? I didn’t finish school; I’ve never worked a proper part-time job; I -”

“- You’re not even twenty five - there’s plenty of time to go back to school.”

“And pay my rent and bills how?”

He realises then that her voice is starting to rise and so is his. He takes a breath and softens his touch on her skin. Suggesting she could stay with him seems like a bad idea and so he remains quiet on that subject at least. 

“I just want you to do something you enjoy,” Jughead tells her gently. 

Her fingers catch his and she brings them to her mouth, kissing his knuckles. “I enjoy modelling when  _ you’re _ the photographer.”

Now, then, he thinks, might be the time to ask her about the project. “What if you headed the new collection?”

She lifts her head again. “The one you mentioned last night?”

“Yes. I wondered if I could take your scars.”

“Would it be anonymous?” Betty questions.

“If you want it to be, then of course.”

“Do  _ you  _ want it to be?”

“I want it to be whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She shakes her head. “You must have an idea in mind - you always do.”

He stays quiet but she knows she’s right.

“So in your head, when you picture it, is the shot of my palms or of me?”

Jughead moves so he can set some space between them, so she can see his face and know he’s telling the truth when he holds her wrists in each of his hands, smoothing over the crescents with his thumbs. “I might picture things Betty, but none of it means anything unless you’re comfortable. Photographer and subject - it’s a partnership. You’re my partner in all of it.”

She seems not to know what to say, but then eventually opens her mouth to whisper shakily, “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

_ I love you, _ he thinks.  _ It’s that simple.  _

  
  
  
  
  


Later in the afternoon, when the sun has begun its long descent towards the horizon and the ocean isn’t quite so turquoise in colour, Betty changes into her bathing suit so that Jughead can capture her in blue. They head beyond the palm trees of their private backyard to the beach, and she wades into the water as they’d discussed, arms out to the sides so she can drag her fingertips over the surface, and he snaps the shutter as the sky stretches a thick azure band overhead. 

Working with Betty in this way is easy. He doesn’t even have to think about it really - she looks at shadows and angles and can tell when she needs to adjust her body one way or the other. 

The camera is still pointed her way when she turns her head back to look at him, asking without words whether he has enough. That’s when he takes another - this one just for him - before lowering the camera back to his chest. 

“Are you coming in?” she asks. “Test out those swimming skills?”

He’d rather watch, but if joining her in the water is indulgence then he’s not about to say no.

They float side by side, staring up at the sky, and he wonders when they’ll next do this together; wonders  _ where _ they’ll next do this together.

_ I love you, _ he thinks again when her fingers find his. _ And I’m going to  _ keep _ loving you. _

  
  
  
  
  


The following morning, not long after dawn breaks over the same ocean they’d swum in mere hours earlier, they climb back into the Pontiac with their bags packed, knowing there are close to twenty hours of driving to do. They’ll stop half way of course, and when they need gas or if either of them need to stretch their legs, but other than that the trip is over.

They’re both quiet as they skirt the edges of Miami and Fort Lauderdale and Boca, the conversation only starting up again (granted, intermittently) when they reach Jacksonville and the perfect blue sky is interrupted by a handful of clouds.

Betty’s fingers rest over his the whole time as she’s scrolling through her phone - checking, she says, for whatever she’s missed while they’ve been away. She updates him on a couple of positive comments on his Instagram pictures of her in Big Stone Gap, comments that mention photography as opposed to her, and some news events from the world of politics. 

Lunch is at a diner just over the Georgia border: burger and fries for Jughead, buttermilk chicken and salad for Betty which she manages only half of, and then they’re back in the car and heading north on I-95.  

She gets her period in a gas station bathroom a little outside of Florence, South Carolina. It’s a pretty symbolic end, Jughead thinks, to the trip. When they fall into bed in the early hours of the morning, his eyes tired and heavy from forcing them to stay open until he’d found a motel they could sleep at, it’s with no intention of doing anything other than resting. Their fingers find each others’ in the dark but Betty’s knees are pulled up to her chest in an attempt to relieve her cramps and he can’t get as close as he wants to. 

The following day, they grab breakfast from the nearby gas station (two bruised apples, water and coffee - plus a KitKat for him because there’s no way an apple is going to keep him going until their next stop) and head back onto I-95 for the long journey back to New York.

The sky is an ominous, mocking indigo when Jughead parks the car on the street one block away from Betty’s building much later that evening. There had been no spaces right outside and he’s chancing a ticket by leaving it where it is so he can accompany her to her apartment. He still doesn’t like the fact that he’s dropping her off rather than bringing her back to his place, but after their semi-disagreement about the fact that she has to apologise to her agency tomorrow, he figures it’s best not to say anything more. 

He’s grateful at least for there being no paparazzi here to capture the end of whatever this trip has been - the last thing he needs is for his no doubt bereft face to be pictured in one of those awful gossip magazines. He carries Betty’s bags to the lobby and then attempts to follow her up in the elevator when she stops, turning to him with what looks like tears in her eyes.

_ Let’s just go back to the car, _ he wants to say.  _ Forget our lives here and drive the west coast this time, then everywhere in the middle until we’ve seen everything. _

“Betty -”

“-If you come up,” she cuts in. “It’ll be that much harder when you leave.”   

“I could stay.”  _ Let me stay. _

“Jug, if you stay then…” Her words seem to get caught somewhere and she shakes her head. “You’ve done everything for me and I need to do something on my own before I… before…”

“Before  _ what _ baby?” he urges.

“Before I ruin this.”

He’s suddenly very aware that they’re having this conversation - albeit hushed - in the presence of the concierge and he doesn’t want anyone to hear her talk about herself like that. He sets her bags down by his feet and takes both of her hands in his, bringing them up to his mouth so he can press a kiss against her palms. 

“Impossible,” he breathes. She needs to know he loves her; that he’s not going anywhere, but she shouldn’t hear it like this - like it’s a response.

Tilting her chin so her lips brush his, she whispers, “One day, I’ll repay you.”

He thinks his chest might hurt more now than it did the day his mom left with Jellybean. He shakes his head, lips still against hers when he whispers, “You already have.”

“No,” she disagrees. “But I will.”

Jughead gathers her in his arms, folding his them around her back so his fingertips almost reach his sides. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

Betty nods against his chest. “Where?”

“Anywhere.”

He can feel her smile - is well-versed now in the different shapes her mouth makes against his skin - and that ache in his chest lessens slightly. 

“Dinner? I could make something.”

“You don’t have to -”

“- Because I  _ want to  _ Juggie. I’ll make something because I enjoy cooking and because you enjoy eating it.”

_ Well okay then,  _ he thinks. “Okay.”  _ I love you.  _  He kisses her hair once, twice and then her lips as her eyelids sweep downwards so he can kiss those too.

“Goodnight,” she whispers with a smile.

“Night baby.”

He watches as she picks up her bags and presses the button for the elevator. Its doors open right away and she steps inside, turning to face him so she can lift her hand in a wave. He does the same, all the while with a sinking feeling in his chest that he doesn’t get to spend the night with her, and when the doors close he finally leaves. 

Thankfully, there is no ticket on Archie’s car when Jughead returns to it. He knows he should drop it back round for his best friend - with a full tank of gas and a crate of beer at the very least - but he’s tired and there’s no Betty to ride the subway with or to soothe his aching muscles with her fingertips or to kiss his lips or his cheek or his neck. 

He’ll do it in the morning, he decides, when Betty’s busy apologising for something which, in his opinion, nobody should have to apologise for. It’ll take his mind off of it - at least for a short while as his best friend winces at the two thousand-plus miles he’s added to the odometer. 

The engine purrs into life and he pulls out into the street, making a right at the end and then another until he can join the flow of traffic on West Street. He arrives back at his building with a mounting headache and a sense of regret that he didn’t insist that either Betty stay with him or him with her. 

The door of his apartment opens after an initial shove thanks to the sticky city heat, and he drops his bags as soon as he’s inside, holding on to only the backpack his camera and laptop are in. He sets that on the couch and then heads straight for the shower which, thanks to the way the pipes groan at being used, might be the only way he can concentrate on something other than Betty sleeping in a large bed on her own (and him sleeping alone in a bed which he’s never  _ ever  _ wanted to share until now)

It doesn’t work. The pipes grind and he thinks about water droplets on Betty’s skin. He towels off and thinks of the way she wraps the fluffy cotton bath sheet around her chest. He pulls on a clean t-shirt and thinks how much better she’d look wearing it, and he doesn’t even climb into bed before he’s debating going back over there. 

Jughead groans to himself and tries to determine, as his head hits the pillow, why it is that he feels like this. He figures loving her is a huge part of it, but he needs to know if the other part is him worrying about her unnecessarily, or if said worry is justified. A police siren begins screaming outside and his head thumps and all he wants to do is bury his face in that glorious dip between her breasts.  

There is no message from her on his phone. It’s almost pathetic how much he misses her given that it’s been no more than two hours since he was kissing her in the lobby of her apartment building. He types out a quick  **_I miss you_ ** (with more kisses than he’s ever sent in a message before) before silently berating himself for being so pathetic. He’s made fun of Archie so many times for this, and now he feels a little guilty. 

Maybe, he thinks, this is what torture feels like.

  
  
  
  
  


No reply comes.

Jughead waits what feels like a reasonable amount of time before sending a  **_you okay?_ ** message which makes him feel even more pathetic and powerless. That feeling only increases when Betty doesn’t reply to that either. He knows, of course, that she might already be asleep. He hopes that’s the case, but there’s growing panic rising in his chest, and he curses himself aloud for leaving her in the first place. 

He can cope with her being mad at him, he decides, as long as he knows she’s safe. 

Throwing back the covers, he blows out a breath and rubs his hands over his face. His eyelids are heavy but Jughead knows he won’t sleep until he’s certain she’s okay. He throws on a pair of jeans and is thankful that he hadn’t delivered the Pontiac back to Archie earlier so he can take that rather than the late night service with its eclectic collection of troubled characters. 

The streets are relatively quiet traffic-wise, and he makes it to Battery Park City in less than twenty minutes, managing to secure a space on the same street as Betty’s building. The same concierge from earlier is behind the desk, and before Jughead can ask to be let up, he nods and asks,

“Ms Cooper?”

“Yeah,” he replies gravelly. “Uh, thanks.”

The concierge nods again. “Go ahead.”

He takes the elevator, the ride feeling longer than it has the small handful of times he’s taken it in the past, but finally the doors open for him to step out. 

Jughead knocks at the door of Betty’s apartment and then listens intently for any signs of noise or movement. There is no answer after a minute, and he knocks again - a little louder this time - and adds,

“It’s Jughead.”

He hears something - shuffling maybe - which grows closer until he hears the lock slide. She opens the door, eyes rimmed with red, but of course she’s beautiful. “I just needed to know you were okay,” he explains before she can even ask why he’s at her door. He’s so overcome with relief that she’s standing before him, that at first he doesn’t notice what’s beyond the threshold. And then he sees the rubber gloves on her hands and his gaze drifts to the gap between the door and Betty’s body, and he sees why she hasn’t returned his messages.  

“Betty!” he gaps as he takes in the mess of broken glass and other debris strewn across the floor. “What happened?” He half pushes past, stepping into her apartment without any real invitation. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Her voice is quiet - almost inaudible - when she admits, “I don’t want to have to run to you every time something goes wrong.” 

Except, this isn’t just  _ going wrong. _ This is so much more than that.

“Did he do this? Chic?” Really, he knows the answer before the question even leaves his mouth. The glass coffee table is no longer a single piece of furniture, its shards scattered across the floor and Betty’s only wearing sandals on her feet and  _ fuck,  _ she might get cut and -

“I should’ve seen this coming,” she starts. “I should’ve told him first about…” She sucks in a shaky breath and Jughead thinks she might be fighting tears. “About...the… the baby.”

She  _ does _ cry at that, shielding her face with her hands and it suddenly feels like they’re right back to where they were before they left. He clenches his fists, pouring the anger he feels towards someone he’s never even met into his knuckles so that when he shelters her against him, he’s nothing other than gentle. 

For a long time, neither of them say anything. Eventually though, his concern over her safety wins out and he brushes his lips against her forehead before telling her gently,

“Betts, the locks haven’t been changed. Will you please stay with me tonight until someone can come out to sort them?”

She pulls back, wiping her eyes. “It’s his apartment too Jug - he pays half the rent.”

“Okay,” he replies, trying to hold in the building sigh. “But sleeping here tonight - I don’t know if…”

“Okay,” she agrees quietly. “I’ll come back with you.”

He figures he’s supposed to feel pleased at that - or at least more satisfied than he does. But it’s come as a result of Chic destroying her apartment and now they’re surrounded by glass fragments, and he’s mad that he can’t do anything to make this better. 

“I need to clean up first,” she tells him, and Jughead nods in agreement.

“Your feet baby,” he says gently. “Maybe you should change into something more protective?”

He watches as she glances down as if only just realising she’s standing there in sandals. His fingers trail the length of her arm until they reach her hand, squeezing before he releases her. 

“I’ll make a start.” 

  
  
  
  
  


He’s cut himself twice. Betty’s hands though are blood-free, so Jughead figures it’s a good trade-off. She’s silent as they ride over Brooklyn Bridge, her head resting against the window and her fingers resting against her thighs. He wonders if she’s fighting the urge to sink her nails into her palms or if she’s too tired even to do that, but he doesn’t ask. 

When they reach his street, he parks up a hundred yards or so away from his apartment building and climbs out, meeting Betty on the sidewalk. She doesn’t take his hand and so he doesn’t make the move to take hers either, rather walking as close to her as he dares without touching. 

“You want a shower or…” he trails off once they’re safely inside of his living room. 

“That’d be good.”

“The pipes are loud,” he warns her with what he hopes is a smile. “I’ll grab you some clean towels.”

When he hands them to her - two haphazardly folded squares of cotton that don’t match - her fingers brush his and very very softly, she says,

“Thank you.”

He knows she doesn’t just mean for the towels, but things feel too precarious for him to reply with anything other than,

“No problem.”

Betty turns to head in the direction of the bathroom and he adds, “I’ll just be here if you need me.”   

As soon as he hears the first groan of the pipes, he leaves the living room for his bedroom, taking a clean t-shirt from the drawer for her to wear. He finds some boxers too - just in case - and makes as neat a pile as he can, placing them outside of the bathroom door. 

She must find them because as he’s grabbing a glass of water, she pads across the floor towards him, wet hair pulled up into a bun on the top of her head and those deliciously long legs of hers covered only by the cotton of his clothing. 

It’s not the right time to tell her she looks beautiful, but she does. She  _ always _ looks beautiful.

Almost like she’s unsure, she steps closer, bringing her arms around him. His automatically go to hug her back, and he murmurs into her hair, “Just so you know, you can stay as long as you like.”

“That’s sweet of you Juggie,” she replies, “But -”

“- Please don’t act like I’m doing this as a favour. I love you Betty. I want you where I am.”

His eyes are closed but they fly open when he realises what he’s just admitted. Of course, he means it, but that’s not how he’d wanted to tell her.

“Jug…” she starts, craning her neck to look up at him. “I.... I.”

He doesn’t need to hear it back. Not right now anyway. The fact that she l _ ets _ him love her is enough.

“Come to bed?” he asks gently. “Not to… I know you’re -”

She stops him with a kiss fluttering against his mouth and he practically folds from tiredness; from relief. “Bed sounds good.”

They settle under the sheets and for a moment Jughead just watches her. _ I want to take your picture like this, _ he thinks. His camera stays, though, where he left it in the bag on the couch and he stretches out on his back so Betty can tuck herself against his side. He flicks off the light and the room is cloaked in darkness.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to sleep with you tonight,” she whispers, trailing her nails across his chest.

“I know.”

“I just don’t want you to think -”

“- I don’t.”

“We’ll figure it out?” she asks on a yawn, snuggling further into him.

He strokes through her hair and tightens his arm around her. “We’ll figure it out.” And then, “I love you.”

Her lips form a kiss against his neck and he thinks that might be her way of saying it back. 


	16. Chapter 16

_Whenever I'm alone with you_

_You make me feel like I am whole again_

 

Waking without Jughead makes Betty’s body ache in a way she didn’t know existed until a week ago. She’s ached from tiredness before, from hunger, from pain even. But it’s never felt like this.

The bed feels too big with only her in it. The sheets are cold at one side and she can’t smell that pine-soap-musk scent that’s so uniquely him lingering on the pillow when she takes a breath.

She wants to hear him say, “Morning baby,” in that thick, still-sleepy voice that makes her stomach flutter and the hairs on her arms rise, and she wants to snuggle back into his chest before he begins his descent of kisses down her neck.

She wants to go back in time and take up his offer of staying with him too, but she knows this is what she needs in order for them to work. He can’t keep giving; she can’t keep taking.

She can’t let him be everything.

On her phone, the light flashes signalling an unread text, and Betty already knows it’s from him. The letters on the screen spell out exactly what he’d say if he were here in bed with her, and she smiles as she types back, **_Good morning Juggie._ **

His reply comes less than a minute afterwards as she’s folding back the sheets: **_Is it later yet?_ **

Her smile grows even wider - stretching all the way up so the corners of her eyes crinkle - as she thinks about the fact that tomorrow morning won’t be like today. _Later_ means he’ll stay with her at her place: an arrangement they’d made the day after they’d gotten back from their trip. One night apart, the next together, and repeat for the foreseeable future.

It kind of makes her excited to go to work, knowing that when her day shooting for a relatively new SoHo-based jewellery company is over, she has her first appointment with her therapist and then, _then_ she can bake the honey-soy salmon currently marinating in her refrigerator while she showers in preparation for Jughead’s arrival.

 **_It’ll be later soon,_ ** she messages back. **_Have a good day at work. I can’t wait to see you._ **

Betty showers and then redresses in a camisole and patterned skirt that show off the tan she hadn’t even realised until a couple of nights ago that she’s developed, and then she pulls her damp hair into a ponytail. The stylist will take care of makeup, how she has her hair and what she’ll wear, so she spends longer than she should examining her cheekbones in the mirror. It had been surprising to discover that she’d been chosen for this job: girls are usually selected to model earrings and necklaces when their features are more angular - which hers are definitely not. She hopes the company hasn’t made their decision based on what she looked like before she went away with Jughead, when her cheekbones were more prominent and her collarbone was sharper. She just hopes she’s not a disappointment.

Tearing her gaze away from the mirror before she can get too overwhelmed with those types of thoughts, Betty heads to the kitchen to make coffee and grab one of the yogurt pots before she leaves. Her phone flashes again, this time with a series of kisses in response to the message she’d sent Jughead, and her toes scrunch against the floor.

  
  
  
  


She is, as it turns out, a bit of a disappointment. Nobody says anything directly, but the makeup artist mentions several times about contouring _to give the impression of a better cheekbone_ as she holds up earrings against the bottom of her lobes.

 _Still not good enough,_ Betty thinks, but it doesn’t carry the same sting as it had before. It’s not pleasant but it’s a job that’ll pay the agency which, in turn, will pay her. When it comes to posing, she lifts her head and elongates her neck, pulling in her cheeks to highlight the bone that, a month or so ago, hadn’t needed the same level of effort.

“That’s better,” the photographer announces, and she wishes it were Jughead; wishes that rather than _that’s better,_ the words might be _that’s it baby. Hold it there._

She imagines him saying it anyway, lifting her chin a little higher, a little more defiantly. The shutter clicks in rapid succession and she angles her head the other way.

For the next pair of earrings, her hair is set in soft waves, a few of which are pulled back and pinned with a 50’s style clip covered in jewels. She tips her head back this time at the photographers request, her stomach rumbles in hunger, and she thinks about what she might get for lunch.

They’re done a little after one, and Betty wipes most of the makeup off of her face, leaving only a light sweep of eyeshadow and the two coats of mascara on her eyelashes. She redresses in her own clothes again and checks the notifications on her phone, discovering that there’s a voicemail from Chic. She’s not sure whether or not she wants to hear it, but knows for sure that if she _does,_ she doesn’t want to hear it in this little studio with goodness knows who listening in.

She grabs salad for lunch knowing that dinner will be a tastier, less healthy affair, and feels content that even though it’s still hard, she’s managed to find some sort of a balance with food that hasn’t been part of her life since she first moved to the city. On her way to the subway, Betty passes a store that actually makes her stop in her tracks. It has a bright pink awning and the word _do_ in a large circle frosted in the glass window. She looks up to discover the place sells cookie dough - and not just the kind she used to buy from the refrigerator section of the supermarket when she was still in high school.

She thinks immediately of Jughead and dessert for later; wonders whether he only likes baked cookies or if, like her, he can eat nearly an entire packet of raw sugar cookie dough (preferably with the character shapes printed on them) without feeling remotely sick.

The girl behind the counter recognises her straight away, and beams when Betty asks what she’d recommend.

“Are you eating it now or later?” she questions.

“Later - after dinner.”

The girl pauses a moment, opening her mouth as if she’s about to ask another question, but in the end she closes it and reaches for a tub of brightly-coloured plastic spoons. “Nothing with ice cream then I guess,” she smiles. “Is it just for you or…”

“I might share,” she replies without being specific. It’s not like gossip surrounding her and Jughead isn’t plastered over social media, but directly mentioning him doesn’t really seem fair.

“Cool,” the girl says. “How about one of our bite boxes? You get twelve little scoops of dough and you can pick the ones you’d like.”

“Sounds perfect,” Betty replies, and then proceeds to select two of each of the classic flavours, plus the s’mores one because if she had to settle on a single flavour for the man she’ll see in less than five hours, it’d be that one.

She pays and then, a little nervously, the girl asks, “Can I take a picture - for our Instagram?”

 _Part of the job,_ she thinks. “Of course.” She’s aware of other customers looking - and, in turn, recognising her - but as much as she’s uncomfortable, it’s not terrible. She wonders what Jughead is currently pointing his camera at, and she leaves the store in the direction of West 4th and Washington Square station.

  
  
  
  


At the therapist’s office, she’s welcomed straight into a private room painted in a pale blue-grey. Betty figures it’s supposed to be calming, but it’s almost too obvious in its duty and her heart rate ramps up, her chest squeezing tighter as she takes a seat on the couch.

“It’s nice to meet you in person Ms Cooper,” Dr Muggs smiles as she takes a seat beside her. There isn’t much space for the two of them, and she actually feels her heart beating in her throat as she looks across at the potted plant in the far corner and the framed picture of a nondescript ocean on the opposite wall. It’s not like one Jughead would take, she finds herself thinking, and just that small reference to him makes her feel a tiny bit easier about the whole thing.

“I think it’s a great idea Betts,” he’d said when she’d asked if she’d made the right decision in seeking a professional to talk to regarding her anxiety. They’d been lying together in his bed, her tucked in at his side as he’d added, “And I think you’re brave to do it.”

She takes a breath and swallows. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

The session passes quickly. They map out what Betty hopes to achieve, setting reasonable steps in order to get there, and discuss her triggers too.

“It’s important that you remember there’s no time limit on these goals,” Dr Muggs says. “Work towards a someday, not a _this_ day.”

It makes sense and she finds herself feeling a little lighter when she exits the private room into the waiting area. Even the blue-grey of the walls doesn’t seem to be jeering her, and she passes purposefully from the building into the late afternoon sunshine. There are still the thoughts surrounding what might be the subject of Chic’s voicemail on her phone, but she keeps it stowed away in her purse until she’s comfortable enough to listen.

Back at her apartment, she makes sure everything is clean and straight, the remainder of her laundry from the trip having been put away into the closet and drawers respectively, ready for Jughead’s arrival. She knows he’s unlikely to care if not everything is in its place - especially considering the night he dropped her off and then came back to check up on her, only to find the coffee table smashed and the bathroom mirror covered in her most expensive lipstick spelling out the word _whore._ Still, she likes things to be nice and she wants things to be nice for _him._ Lord knows they weren’t when he was younger.

Betty tosses the potatoes she’s cubed in a light coating of olive oil, chili and herbs and then spreads them out on a baking sheet ready to place in the oven. She checks the salmon, lifting it out of its marinade to set in aluminium foil and then lays cutlery on the dining table she’s rarely used.

Jughead arrives a little before seven, a bunch of daisies in one hand and his laptop bag in the other. Her stomach flutters as he kisses her hello and then brushes his lips against her hairline as he inhales.

“Are you trying to kill me with that outfit?” he asks once she’s closed the door and checked the new deadlock three times.

“It’s just shorts and a little top Juggie,” she replies. “You’ve seen me in less.”

“Precisely.” He kisses her again, long and slow as he pulls her to him so their hips are flush. His voice is low enough to send shivers all over her body when he adds, “And it’s hard not to think about that when you’re wearing this.”

She tends to the potatoes after she’s gotten Jughead a drink, turning them over to crisp on the other side while he takes a seat at the island counter. His eyes are on her, she can tell, and she over-stretches on purpose so the hem of her top rides up to expose the bottom of her back.

He’s grinning with bright eyes when she turns around. “How was your therapy session?”

It catches her off-guard how easy it seems to be for him to switch gears like that, but she leans across the marble, stroking her fingertips across his hand. “Better than I expected.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He smiles and leans across to kiss her again. “That’s great baby.”

Her toes scrunch against the floor like they had that morning and he’s already the best part of her day.

  
  
  
  


“Hard to believe it’s the same sky we floated beneath last week right?” Betty asks him as they’re snuggled up outside. It’s not particularly cold but she’s beneath the blanket anyway, her back pressed against Jughead’s chest and her crown tucked under his chin. She has no idea how he can be so gentle and yet make her feel so safe and protected at the same time, but he does and she strokes her fingers along his arms.

“You miss it?” Jughead asks.

“Yes,” she admits. “But this is good too. Better than good.”

She can feel his lips curve into a smile against her scalp. “Definitely better than good.”

The traffic below has tailed off a little from the near-gridlock it had been earlier, but everything on the asphalt is so busy compared to up where they are. That used to be something that calmed her - a reminder that there were so many other people and so much other noise she could draw upon if she needed it. Now though, when she’s with Jughead, the quiet is something good.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he murmurs.

Betty turns in his arms so she can see his face. “Yeah?”

“When I photograph the volunteers for the shoot, will you be there?”

Her throat suddenly feels tight - tighter even than it had when she first entered Dr Muggs’ office. “Jug…. I… Why?”

He scratches at the back of his neck like she’s made him nervous with her hesitance. “Lots of reasons,” he admits quietly. “But mainly because I’d like it if you were.”

 _This man,_ she thinks as she reaches with her thumb to trace his lips before pressing her own against them. “What if I made them uncomfortable?”

“Betts,” he whispers against her skin. “I think you’d be an inspiration.”

 _You’re the inspiration,_ she decides, but her throat feels too narrow to squeeze out the words. She kisses him instead, sighing into his mouth when his tongue slips past hers and both of his hands cup her face. Goosebumps that have nothing to do with the growing chill in the air erupt across her skin and Betty turns further, lifting her right knee so she’s seated over Jughead’s lap.

They kiss and kiss and kiss until the only things in her world are the way he feels and tastes and smells; until she can’t think of anything and anyone but him - and she doesn’t even _want_ to. She’s vaguely aware - seconds or minutes or maybe even a half hour later (it doesn’t matter; she doesn’t care) - that they’re moving inside, the blanket Polly had bought cast somewhere on the floor of the living room.

He lays her on the bed gently, sweeping her hair away from her face with a touch so light it makes her stomach roll. He loves her, she realises. _Really_ realises. He loves her so hard and _has_ loved her like that since...she tries desperately to find the moment. Since the peach festival in Quitman - possibly even before that. The motel maybe in that tiny lakeside town in Georgia where he somehow managed to pick her up for their date.  

She wants to thank him for all of it but has no idea what the words are that she’s supposed to use. She isn’t even sure there _are_ any words.

 _I love you,_ she considers - because she does. She _does_ love him - but it doesn’t seem enough.

Jughead is halfway to unbuttoning her shorts when there’s a huge bang at the apartment door. Another follows and then another in quick succession followed by a slurred “Betty!”

Chic, she realises instantly. Jughead must realise the same because he bristles before abruptly withdrawing his hand and straightening up.

“I know you’re home,” he shouts. “And I know _he’s_ there.”

She realises then that she’s not terrified like she half-expects to be. She’s mad. Mad that’s he’s interrupted _this._

“You don’t have to open the door,” Jughead reminds her.

She knows that. But she’s not going to hide from Chic - not when _he’s_ there. “I won’t let him win Jug,” Betty replies, and fastens the button of her shorts. “You’re staying?”

He sets his hands on her shoulders, kneading lightly as he promises, “Of course.”

There’s yet another bang at the door and she hurries to answer it before the neighbours start complaining or the concierge comes up to check. As soon as she opens the door she can smell alcohol on him; can see too that his eyes are wild. It’s not cocaine this time, but something else. She remembers the sting between her legs and the feel of him heavy against her back but she doesn’t sink her nails into her palms.

“I love you,” he urges, sinking to his knees in contradiction to the tone of his voice.

She shakes her head. “You don’t.” _Never have,_ she thinks when she recalls the many ways Jughead loves her. He’s out of sight, still in her bedroom probably - the same one she used to share with the man who’s now resting his head against her stomach.

“I do Betty,” he insists. “I fucking love you.”

She stands resolute. “You destroyed this apartment. You called me a whore.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You _raped_ me.”

He stands at that and she watches his expression change in contorted movements. “You were my girlfriend.”

“I didn’t _want_ to.”

His blue eyes turn icy cold. “I had sex with you and you took it, so don’t you dare fucking say that you didn’t want it you -”

She cuts him off with a slap across his cheek. It stings her palm and instinctively it curls inward as he sneers, one side of his mouth curled upwards so that his teeth are bared. It sends a jolt of panic through her and whether Jughead hears the slap or senses that fear pounding in her chest, Betty’s unsure, but she hears him behind her; already knows his right hand is making a fist.

“Get out Chic.”

He just laughs. It’s a humourless syllable.

“She told you to leave,” Jughead barks.

Chic steps to the side, leaving Betty staring at the door. She turns quickly, trying to decide whether she should call the police. Jughead is half a head shorter than him, but more built. He doesn’t, however, have drugs in his system.    

“She was going to have my baby,” Chic smirks. “You’re just the guy who’d have to watch from the sidelines.”

Jughead hits him at that: a punch that whips his head from one side to the other. Betty hears the crack and can’t tell if it’s cheekbone or knuckles. It makes her want to vomit. There’s blood smeared across his mouth when his turns his head back to them, but Jughead hits again. Chic coughs, spitting blood onto the floor and Betty stands, rooted to the spot as he grins a bloody smile.

“I’ll have you charged with assault.”

Jughead stands defiantly, like he couldn’t care less; like this is worth it. “Jug,” she whispers, reaching to cup his fist in both of her hands. “That’s enough.” Only when her skin meets his does she realise that her nails _have_ broken the skin of her palms.

When she’s sure he isn’t going to hit Chic again, Betty turns to face the man she loved once upon a time. “If you report this, I’ll report you for attacking _me_.”

He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but in the end, his eyes narrow and he spits more blood out onto the floor as he turns to leave. His head is down, hands clenched in tight, white fists and he looks back over his shoulder.

“I screwed Darla while you were gone.”

It doesn’t hurt. Not in the slightest. _She_ fell in love while she was gone.

He leaves the door open on his way out and Betty watches him determinedly all the way until he disappears inside of the elevator and she hears its whirr transporting him downwards.

Jughead crosses to her but doesn’t touch. Are you okay?”

She closes the door, checks the lock and then checks it again and then again. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly on a sigh. “I loved him once.”

“I know.”

Neither of them say anything else.

  
  
  
  


“What Chic said about you watching from the sidelines…” Betty starts, her fingers stroking the bruised knuckles of Jughead’s hand.

“You don’t have to make it better baby,” he says gently. “They were his words, not yours.”

She shakes her head though, telling him without words that she hasn’t finished. He needs to know. “If I hadn’t…lost the baby, I don’t know where I‘d have been now. It wasn’t a good thing, but it brought something good in the end,” she tells him. “And I don’t know if it makes me a bad person, but I’m grateful. For _you_ Juggie.” She brushes her lips over the back of his hand but he tips her chin with his forefinger, lifting her lips to his. “I’m _so_ grateful for you.”

“Betts...” His voice is choked but she thinks she knows what he means. She loves him too.

His chest is comfy beneath her cheek and she doesn’t want to move, but inexplicably she remembers the cookie dough she bought earlier. She makes to get up but his left arm tightens around her waist. “I’m just grabbing dessert from the refrigerator,” she explains, pushing off of the couch. “I’ll be back in a minute. You want coffee?”

He shakes his head. “I want you to come back.”

Betty laughs despite everything: despite the new crescents in her hands; the memory of the pain between her legs - and then the excruciating waves of cramps as she’d miscarried; the way Chic had looked at her as though he’d never even liked her let alone _loved_ her.

“I won’t be long,” she says, pushing all of it from her mind. “And I’ll make coffee.”

Jughead smiles sleepily. “I love you.”

She opens her mouth, desperate to say it back. She won’t let him think it’s a reaction to what’s happened tonight though - or worse, that’s it simply a reaction to him saying the words.

 _It deserves a moment of its own,_ she thinks.

They eat the little dough bites between sips of coffee, Jughead stuffing his in whole, Betty taking three bites to manage each of hers. He practically groans at the taste of the s’mores one, and Betty grins, quietly proud of herself for picking something he so clearly enjoys.

“And this place does ice cream too?” he clarifies.

“And brownies, pie, fudge…”

“We have to go there. You’ve awakened a deep-seated need in me for cookie dough Betty Cooper.”

She giggles and kisses him. “Yeah? Well I’m starting to feel sick.”

“Let me help,” he says, taking one of her remaining two bites and kissing her before he’s even swallowed. She can taste chocolate and marshmallow and all she can think is _I love you._

  
  
  
  


Jughead’s worried about Chic coming back. He doesn’t say as such, but his eyes don’t close once as they’re lying on the couch, some nondescript movie he’d usually object to playing in the background. He doesn’t suggest they go to bed, just simply tightens his hold on her now and then. It makes her heart squeeze and her throat tight when he asks,

“Shall I get a blanket for you?”

“I can get it,” Betty replies. “Or, if you like, we could sleep at your place?”

He lifts his head. “You want to?”

She doesn’t really mind, but the quickness of his response tells her that he does, and so she says, “I like your bed.”

He calls an Uber and they’re in Brooklyn just a little before midnight. They crawl into bed without any preamble, her dressed in only her underwear and one of his t-shirts - the very first one she can remember wearing - and Jughead slips beneath the sheets wearing only his boxers. His bare chest is warm when she curls against him, slipping her right leg between both of his.

Despite the fact that his knuckles are sore, he combs through her hair with his fingers over and over until her eyelids are so heavy that she can barely hold them up.

“I love you,” she whispers against his neck.

His fingers halt their movements momentarily but then resume again, perhaps even more gently than before.

“I love you too baby,” he replies. “So much.”

  
  
  
  


Two days later, Jughead photographs her palms for his mental health series. They head to Greenacre Park and she stands beside the waterfall until he’s ready to take the picture of her slightly-cupped hands in the flow of water. Once he’s sorted, he says softly,

“Okay baby,” and Betty crouches down to let the water spill over her hands. Her feet get soaked, and she can feel dampness spreading up the thin cotton fabric of her dress, but Jughead points his camera at her palms and snaps picture after picture of the crescents, and she doesn’t care. His feet are wet too, and rather than the flip flops like she has, he’s wearing boots like he almost always does despite the summer heat.

“Okay,” he tells her again when he’s got what he needs, and holds out a hand to help her stand. She laces their fingers together once they’re side by side, and he drops a kiss to her forehead when she leans against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I can’t come with you tomorrow,” she apologises.

“You have to work too,” he says. “It’s okay.”

“But you’ll send me the photos so I can see?”

He kisses her again. “Of course.”

“And I’ll come for the next one,” she promises.

The next one she’s referring to is a shot Jughead will take on Brighton Beach of a now ex-model who’d starved herself so much as a teenager working in the industry that she’d been admitted to hospital and fed through a tube. Now, there is a scar on her abdomen and she’s agreed to wear a bikini as she lies on the sand beneath the sun.

“If you can,” he reminds her gently, and they head out of the park with no real destination in mind.

They wander around Midtown until they reach a little sushi place with tables on a rooftop balcony. The sky is an uninterrupted wash of blue, and they take a seat under a parasol that blocks enough brightness for Jughead to be able to review the pictures on his camera.

Betty pulls her chair close to his so she can see, and he loops an arm around her back to hold her closer, angling the screen so she gets a better view than he does.

“You always make it easy for me,” he tells her in reference to the quality of the pictures he’s taken. “I hope the photographer tomorrow remembers that.”

She smiles and snuggles in closer as the server arrives with two menus and a succinct drinks list. It’s obvious that he recognises her, but he’s polite enough not to say anything other than,

“Good after Ms Cooper. Sir. Can I get you some water?”

She accepts his offer and he smiles, leaving with a nod that has Betty smiling too.

 _Maybe things will be easier from now on,_ she thinks. Maybe she’ll get her happy ending in New York after all.  

“I love that smile,” Jughead whispers, nuzzling the dimple at the side of her mouth with his nose. She grins even wider and turns her head a fraction to kiss him.

“I love _you._ ”

  


* * *

 

 

There are swathes of crisp leaves lining the edge of the street and the sky is a weak periwinkle on the day they arrive outside of their new apartment building. Betty glances up at the red brick and the black window frames and thinks, _you’re ours._

They’d settled on the place together after trawling the internet and viewing way too many shoebox-sized apartments. The place is significantly smaller than the one she’s left behind in Battery Park City, but it’s bigger than Jughead’s old home and the price of the rent doesn’t make her nervous in the same way the last place had.

Despite the fact that she’s almost certain he’d watched her fall in love with the light from the two large windows, Jughead had initially been unsure about signing for the apartment.

“Don’t you want something more?” he’d asked her in a hushed whisper as they’d stood in the only bedroom. “Something bigger? More like your apartment?”

“I want _this_ place with _you_ Jug,” she remembers telling him, and he’d kissed her in the spot where their new bed will rest.

She’s glad of the removal company when she sees the struggle they have with the couch up the three flights of stairs to the top of the building. It had been Jughead’s insistence: she wasn’t to lug any heavy furniture either on her own or with him at the other end, and so Betty takes on the role of director, instructing the men on where to put lamps and drawers and crockery.

Finally, the last box is placed on the living room floor, Jughead tips the removal guys heavily, and then the door is closed so it’s just the two of them.

“We live together,” she grins, stepping around the boxes to wrap her arms around him.

“We do.”

“We’ll be happy here.”

He pulls her tighter and her lips curve even higher. “I know baby.”

“I love you,” Betty tells him, tilting her head so she can stretch up to kiss him. His lips meet hers gently and as they break apart, he murmurs,

“I love you too.”  


	17. Chapter 17

_ Thank you for loving me: _

_ For being my eyes when I couldn’t see _

 

“I’m so jealous!” Veronica bemoans as Betty tops up her glass of wine. Jughead is already regretting inviting Archie and his fiance to this dinner date his own girlfriend had suggested, and they haven’t even got started on dessert yet. “Babe, we should really go on more trips away,” she adds, this time directing her statement at Archie, who only lifts his eyebrows in response. 

“Didn’t you spend two weeks in Miami during the spring?” Jughead asks. 

Betty sits back down beside him and he rubs his palm across her leg, just a little way above her knee so he gets bare skin as opposed to the silky material of her dress. She’s spent all day cooking to host this little dinner party; had intended that her friend Kevin from Yellow Springs (that Jughead is still to meet) would come too with his partner Joaquin, but he’d been forced to work the weekend and was therefore unable to join them. She’s been trying to hide her disappointment, he knows, since the previous evening when she’d gotten Kevin’s apologetic call, but every now and then he catches her smile slip when she’s not paying it full attention. He just wants to send Archie and Veronica home so it’s just the two of them: they’re here because they’re _ his  _ friends, now hers only by default - although Veronica has made it her life’s mission to become Betty’s ‘bestie’ as she insists on calling it. Jughead knows how much his girl likes her, but there’s nothing subtle or quiet about the way Veronica Lodge does  _ anything. _ He figures Betty’s probably exhausted by the time her and Archie leave each time they come over, and when he feels the fingers of her left hand settle over his in a gentle squeeze, he scoots a little closer to murmur,

“The chicken’s delicious baby,” because it  _ is  _ of course, but also because it feels partway like a concession.    

“They key word there is spring,” Veronica returns, spearing an asparagus tip with her fork. “Now it’s nearly winter. You guys did the whole east coast at the beginning of summer and the furthest Archiekins and I got was daddy’s lakehouse.”

Betty clears her throat and says, softly, “We celebrated your engagement in Connecticut.”

Archie grins and shovels in a large mouthful of the creamed potatoes Jughead thinks his girlfriend might’ve only put on her plate for show, and Veronica lifts her fork. “True, and as amazing as that was, it was only two days. I  _ need  _ a vacation.”

He rolls his eyes but Betty must catch him, nudging his leg gently with her knee. She smiles when he looks in her direction and he knows it means  _ leave her alone, _ but it’s a playful kind of chiding judging by the way her eyes are bright and shining, and Jughead can only grin back.

“When do you leave?” Archie asks.

“Tomorrow night,” he replies, attempting at least in part not to look too smug about the fact that this time tomorrow, he and Betty will be boarding a flight first to Zurich, and then to Florence. He can sense the tug of her lips though; knows she’s excited about visiting Italy with him - seeing the Tuscan countryside through his lens. 

He just wants to see it with her.  

It had started out with Betty accompanying him to photograph a model on Brighton Beach for his self-harm series. The project - and that shoot in particular - seemed to awaken something in her that grew into a fire as more and more volunteers agreed to let him photograph them. After Tatiana - the ex model with the feeding tube scar - he’d received a message from a man whose interphalangeal joints were so damaged from repeated punching of a wall that they’ve been left as circles of raw redness - almost film-like in their appearance. Then he’d taken the shot of a wrist lined with horizontal scars which now bares a quote in the form of a tattoo. Said wrist had belonged (does  _ still _ belong) to the CEO of a New York-based design company. His next shot had been of Betty’s prescription pill bottle, a handful of the capsules scattered across the bathroom sink. Initially, the label had been turned away so her name couldn’t be seen, but she’d come up behind him, wrapped both arms around his waist and then extended her right arm so she could turn the bottle, leaving the label facing forwards. 

“I can be brave too,” she’d whispered.

He’d kissed her and then reminded her, “You already are.”

  
  
  
  
  


Archie and Veronica leave after coffee, the latter snuggling into her boyfriend’s side as they head down the hall and towards the elevator. Jughead shuts the door and steps away so Betty can check the lock as she usually does. He’s very careful about her habits with this; knows she needs to do it in order to feel safe, but he’s also very careful that it doesn’t spill over into other areas of her life. Checking the door is locked three times is one thing. Repeatedly turning off and on the light switch would be something else. 

“I got you some cookie dough fudge,” Betty tells him when she’s happy with the lock. “Thought you might not want to share with Archie.”

“Damn right,” he replies, wondering how he’d managed to miss it when he was rifling through the contents of the refrigerator earlier. 

She begins clearing the plates as he’s stuffing a piece into his mouth, the peanut butter creamy and smooth on his tongue. “Leave that Betts - I’ll do it.”

“It’s okay,” she protests. “It won’t take long.”

He crosses the small gap between the refrigerator and the sink, wrapping his arms around her waist as he drops a kiss to her temple. “You cooked: I can clean.”

“I really don’t mind Jug.”

“I do,” he counters, swiftly picking her up before she can protest, her surprised gasp giving way to giggles. 

“Juggie,” she laughs. “Put me down.”

He sets her on the couch and presses a kiss to her lips. “There. As requested. Now lie here and continue to look pretty.”

She laughs again but doesn’t object, and Jughead begins running the water for the dishes. He squirts in liquid soap a little too liberally then makes a start on the wine glasses having discovered, since he and Betty have lived together, that it’s always best to do glasswear first to avoid grease marks. 

He’s on the second one when his girlfriend tucks herself in at his side, her arms coming to circle around his waist. “You’re supposed to be -”

“- Would rather be here,” she cuts in. “Next to you.”

She picks up the tea towel and makes a start on drying the first glass, and a light, giddy feeling fills his chest when he hears her humming to whatever song is playing in her head.

  
  
  
  
  


Their plane lands a little after ten in the morning - Italian time. They have the day before he’s due to shoot for Elle early tomorrow morning, and Jughead decides they should get some sleep before setting out to explore the area surrounding the hotel. He’d managed to get a little rest on the first plane ride, but from the redness around Betty’s eyes, he figures she’s been awake for the duration of both of their flights. 

They take a cab with a slightly erratic driver who seems to enjoy taking corners at a mildly concerning speed, but they eventually reach the hotel on Via dei Calzaiuoli. 

The building is stunning: light stone contrasting with dark green shutters on each side of the windows; elegant arches housing upmarket stores; large capital letters spelling out the name Hotel Calzaiuoli. He hears Betty suck in a breath and smiles when her fingers link with his. 

“I’m excited,” she whispers like they’re children, and Jughead squeezes her hand a little tighter.  

_ So am I _ he wants to say, but the words don’t come out. They get stuck somewhere between his lungs and his lips so he kisses her instead. Her eyes are shining when he pulls away, and he takes the handle of the single suitcase they’ve packed, pulling it behind him as he places his free hand on Betty’s back to guide her through the hotel’s front entrance. The lobby is as elegant as the frontage, as are the elevator and the long hallway leading to their room.

“Jug!” Betty gasps when he hands her the keycard and she swipes it through the lock to open the door. “Look!”

He does. He watches _ her _ look. She sees everything, he can tell: the pedestrians milling around below the window; the fresh flower arrangement in the centre of the coffee table; the imposing four poster bed with its clean, white sheets. 

“It’s so beautiful,” she whispers. It’s almost like she’s never seen a hotel room before, even though Jughead knows she’s spent many evenings away from New York in rooms that probably won’t be too unlike this one. It’s him who isn’t used to the luxury - who hasn’t experienced this level of decadence before - but he’s only interested in her reaction. 

“Bed looks comfy,” he says by way of reply, and Betty crosses the room so she can finger the sheets. She’s quite obviously exhausted but wearing a smile so wide he can’t help but want to kiss her. “Sightseeing can wait baby,” he adds. “You should get some rest.”

She’s visibly torn, but when he comes up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist, she sinks backwards and lets a yawn escape. “I don’t want to waste any time.”

“It’d be a waste if we were too tired to enjoy it.”

Betty turns, angling her head so she can read his expression. She still does that occasionally: checks to work out if he’s lying for her benefit or not. 

(He does  _ many _ things for her benefit, but he never lies)

“C’mon,” he tells her gently, dropping a kiss to her crown. “Sleep.”

They change into pajamas (or at least, she does while he removes everything but his boxers) and then climb beneath the sheets, sinking into the pillowy softness of the mattress. As usual, Betty folds herself against him and he strokes her hair until she falls asleep.

  
  
  
  
  


They wake some time in the late afternoon - or, to be precise,  _ Jughead  _ wakes some time in the late afternoon. Betty’s eyes are already open when he blinks down at her, and she smiles wide when he groans at how comfortable he is.

“How long have you been awake?” he asks, smoothing his hand up her side so it dips and rests at the curve of her waist. 

“Not long,” she replies. “I think we need to buy a new bed when we get home. This one is insanely comfy.”

“You think we could fit something like this in the apartment?”

She seems to think for a moment before conceding, “Maybe not. Perhaps when we buy a house it’ll look good in the master bedroom.”

Only a few sleepy seconds later do her words sink in properly: a house. She sees a  _ house _ in their future - maybe somewhere upstate with lots of trees and fields and other scenery he can photograph. Maybe she sees a dog bounding towards the door when they arrive home from the grocery store. Maybe the house is by the lake with a little store for logs for the fire. Maybe it has a wraparound porch. Maybe they’ll watch the sun set beyond the trees and the fireflies dance over the water and their kids play barefoot on the grass. 

He’s picturing all of it - every minute detail - when he hears Betty’s apologetic gasps. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean we have to buy a house or that we should move or -”

“- Betts,” he says gently, taking her hands between both of his, cupping them together so he can bring them to his lips. He knows they’re turned up in a smile. “I was picturing it.”

He can feel her heart thumping. “Yeah?”

“You think I wouldn’t want all that with you?”

“I don’t know.” She snuggles closer, pulling one of her hands free so she can draw some sort of pattern on his chest. “All what?”

Jughead paints her that picture that’s now so clear in his head it’s like it already exists; like it’s out there somewhere in Saugerties or Catskill, just waiting for them to live it. Betty listens with shining eyes as he stops at the fireflies detail, short of telling her about the little girl with the blonde hair and her younger brother tripping as he runs to catch her in a game of tag.

But he wants that too - babies that look like Betty. Babies that look like _ him.  _

“I promise,” Betty chokes, “That whenever you’re ready for that, I’ll be ready too.”

They eat dinner in the early evening, dressed in clothes that are a little more fancy than the restaurant requires of them, but Betty’s dress is red and made of something that looks suspiciously like expensive silk and all Jughead wants to do is photograph her as she drinks wine and smiles at nothing in particular. 

“You look beautiful,” he tells her, and she scoots her chair closer to his so their knees touch.

“Juggie,” she returns with her eyes light and dancing. “You look handsome too.”

  
  
  
  
  


He’s up before dawn the following morning for the Elle shoot, and his self-control is seriously tested when his girlfriend - lying naked and wrapped in those gloriously sumptuous sheets - rolls over, blinking lazily at him.

“Noooo,” she half whines, stretching an arm out to where he’s pulling on a sweater in the subtle light peeking out from the slightly ajar bathroom door. “Come back to bed.”

“I wish I could.” he replies. “But I already indulged in an extra ten minutes when I should’ve been in the shower.”

“But I wasn’t awake for that,” Betty mumbles with a pout. Jughead smiles at how adorable it makes her look, but he’s careful not to kiss her yet. He really,  _ really  _ needs to get going and if she kisses him now, that might not happen. 

“If you were awake, it would’ve been longer than ten minutes and we’d  _ both _ have needed a shower.”

“Juggie,” she whines, only there’s purpose in her tone now. Gone is the sleep haze and in its place is sheer temptation. She stretches and the sheet falls from around her chest so her breasts are no longer covered. 

“That’s not fair Betts.”

She only arches an eyebrow in response and he steps further away from the bed before his body overrides his brain. She’s told him before how her agent has pressed her to consider modelling without clothing - not to show anything - but to give the illusion of what might be hidden by carefully-placed limbs, and he’s glad that she hasn’t given in just to appease the agency. All he wants to do now though is take a picture of her lying there naked, stretched out on the bed without a fleck of self-consciousness, and then show her with his mouth just how beautiful she looks.

He clears his throat. “I’ll probably be back before lunch and then we can head out to Loro Ciuffenna.”

“Okay,” she replies. “But promise you’ll lie here with me tomorrow morning?”

“I promise.” Jughead finally steps close enough so he can bend down to kiss her, and she sighs as he pulls away, her fingers still trailing along his arm like she wants to touch him for as long as she can before he has to go.

“Be careful,” she says, the words muffled by the pillow as she lays her head back down. He switches the bathroom light off and the room is plunged back into darkness.

“I will. Sweet dreams baby.” He kisses her once more - this time on the forehead - and then collects his camera and laptop bag before heading out.

  
  
  
  
  


The Tuscan scenery in the early morning dawn is truly stunning. Jughead manages to get the pictures he envisaged - the ones he’d talked to the magazine about - in a fraction under three hours, which he figures is pretty good considering the numerous outfit changes and the language barrier. It’s not that everyone else (including the model) doesn’t speak English, it’s just that they don’t speak it particularly fluently, and it’s not like he can even manage a sentence of Italian.  

The thin veil of mist lifts as he’s travelling back to the city centre - back to Betty - and he has the cab stop at a little coffee shop around the corner from the hotel. It’s a little late for breakfast out when they don’t have tons of time, and so he picks up two large espressos and a selection of pastries: amarena crostatas, cornettos and a bag of zeppole, mainly because he’s greedy and he also wants Betty to be able to have a choice.

He walks back to the hotel and wonders where he can take his girlfriend next. She’s dressed in jeans and a chunky-knit cream sweater when he swipes his keycard and enters their room, and he watches her lips lift into a genuine smile at his return. She rushes to help him - he’s a little laden with items in his hands - but not before pressing a kiss against his mouth. 

“Did you have a good shoot?” she asks as she takes the cardboard carry tray from his left hand. 

“Yes,” he replies. “It’s so beautiful first thing in the morning.” he hands her the little bag filled with pastries and she sniffs appreciatively. 

“We could’ve had breakfast in bed,” she laments, but her disappointment isn’t really true. She takes a seat at the little table by the window, eyeing the empty chair in a silent  _ are you joining me?  _ and of course, he sits down as soon as he’s deposited his laptop and camera.  

They eat their breakfast whilst watching people go about their business on the street below, crumbs of flaky pastry scattering across the table each time they tear away little pieces of crostada. The espresso is like an actual electric jolt to his body, and he thinks he hears Betty wince when she swallows a mouthful of hers.

“It’s a little strong,” she laughs, setting down the cup. “That’s all.”

“I’ll get you cappucino tomorrow.”

She shakes her head. “It’s breakfast in bed tomorrow; we can order room service.”

  
  
  
  
  


The train ride to Loro Ciuffenna takes just over two hours, during which they take in the beautiful scenery that whizzes by the window. Sometimes, Jughead manages to capture something with his camera just in time. Often though, he misses it and ends up with a blurred shot, at which Betty laughs and reminds him of the time he told her there wasn’t much to it: just point and click. 

“I was trying to make you feel comfortable,” he admits. 

Betty nestles closer in her seat. “It worked.”

He knows his smile is in his eyes when he looks down and her own crinkle at the corners. “And now we’re here.”

“I’m glad we are,” she replies, angling her head so he’ll kiss her. “I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

He knows she doesn’t mean on the train somewhere just outside of Montemarciano, but where they are in terms of  _ them, _ and he smiles again against her mouth. “Me too.”

The little medieval town seems almost like a film set when they step off the train and wind their way along the narrow streets between a cluster of brightly-painted houses. 

“It doesn’t seem real,” Betty muses as they stop for him to take a picture of a bridge arching over the gorge below. 

“Imagine how many places there must be like this in the world,” Jughead says by way of response. “All different, but completely unspoilt.”  _ I want to see them all with you, _ he decides. 

Once he has the picture he wants, he lets his camera rest around his neck again and takes Betty’s hand in his, linking their fingers so he can keep them warm in the rapidly cooling air. It’s colder than it had been earlier - the last signs of a warm autumn lingering on a select few trees - and he tugs her a little closer so she won’t be cold. 

The little paved road takes them upwards, hugging close to the buildings as it curves right and then left and then right again until they reach the church tower, painted red so that it glows almost amber in the waning mid-afternoon sun. 

“So pretty,” Betty whispers, awed, and for a moment he pictures her in a white dress, smiling under the warm Tuscan sun with a little bouquet in her hands and confetti scattered in her hair. It makes the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up and his mouth goes dry. 

She tries the door but it’s locked. “It’s closed,” she tells him quietly. “That’s a shame.”

His feet are rooted to the spot as he stares at the church and then at his girlfriend. “What if we came back?” he manages to ask. “What if…” He swallows as she looks at him, waiting to hear the end of his question. “If... we got married in that church?”

“Jug,” she gasps. “Are… are you…”

_ Yes, _ he thinks.  _ I am. _ “I’m sorry I don’t have a ring,” he admits. “But if you want to come back here in the summer, I’ll make sure I have one then.”

Betty kisses him with abandon, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and her body pressed so close to his that Jughead doubts even a whisper of air could pass between them. “I love you,” she chokes against his lips. “I love you I love you I -”

He cuts her off with his lips because his chest is too tight to hear her say those words again. He’s only ever heard them from one other woman in his life: the day his mom left and took Jellybean with her. The tone she’d used was something even to this day he can’t define - almost like loving him was something bad; like it was the reason she had to leave. When Betty says the words, it’s like she’s desperate for him to know; to believe her - and he does - and he understands now why she has that urge sometimes to sink her nails into her palms when everything gets too overwhelming. He wonders, sometimes, whether someone can combust from their heart being too full.  

  
  
  
  
  


Dinner is linguine with the most delicious clam sauce Jughead has ever tasted, and they eat it at a tiny table inside a restaurant with low ceilings and dark lighting, and he watches Betty the entire time. Her left hand is bare and he imagines how it’ll look with a ring seated on that fourth finger of hers. His stomach flutters as she twists a forkful of pasta around the prongs, and she uses her leg to rub up his. Over the months they’ve been back from their trip, she’s found so many way to say  _ I love you _ without using words, and this is just one of many. He blinks back at her with a smile so that his eyes tell her  _ I love you too. _

She snuggles into his side as they walk back to the hotel. The air is decidedly chilly and even though she’s wearing a heavy coat, Jughead can tell she’s cold from the redness of her nose and the way her left arm loops underneath his sherpa. 

“I’ll warm you up when we get to the room,” he says with a grin, and he can already sense her eye roll at his corny joke. Betty doesn’t say anything though, just rubs her cheek at his shoulder and then presses her lips against the material of the jacket. 

She kisses him in the elevator, the type of kiss that says _ I love you  _ without any help from anyone or anything else, and only when they reach their floor does she concede that she needs to pull away. 

She’s tense though, he notices, when they walk the short distance down the hallway to their room, and he waits until they’re inside before asking,

“What is it baby?” Betty looks up, somewhat startled that he’s recognised her unease. “Your fingers are twitching,” he lets her know by way of explanation.

“Oh,” she whispers. “Sorry.”

Jughead turns his lips against her forehead. “No need to be.”

“I’ve just been thinking,” she starts, tugging her bottom lip between her front teeth.

“About?”

“That little church earlier.”

He grins, lips curving against her warm skin. “What about it?”

“What if we didn’t come back. If… if we didn’t wait until summer?”

“You need birth certificates to get married Betts,” he tells her gently.

She swallows audibly. “I know. But… what if we got married when we get home? In New York.”

He pulls back slightly so he can see her properly. Her eyes are searching his to see if she’s made a mistake in asking this question, but she must realise she hasn’t when her breath catches high in her throat.

“You don’t want the big wedding with all your friends and family?”

“Maybe once upon a time,” Betty admits. “But not now. Now I just want you.”

Jughead leans in to kiss her, soft and slow and with every ounce of love he has for her. 

“Is that what  _ you  _ want?” she asks when their lips part. “The big party wedding?”

He can’t think of much worse. “No.”

“So…”

“So,” he smiles - and kisses her again. Catching her left hand, he brings it between them so he can stroke her fourth finger. Her  _ ring _ finger. “You’re actually willing to sign a piece of paper that legally binds you to me?”

_ “Jug,”  _ she chides gently, tracing his jaw with her free hand.  

He touches his forehead to hers, closing his eyes. “Sometimes I can’t believe I got you,” he admits aloud. “That I got _ this _ .”

Betty repeats his name again, only this time it sounds like someone or something is trying to steal the letters. It results in the single syllable being stretched into two, but before he can open his eyes again her lips are nudging his. “Every time I look at you,” she says. “I think exactly that.”

His breath is long and slow - deliberate in the time it takes to leave his lungs so that he can gather his words. “You’ll be my wife in New York?”

Her grin is the widest he’s ever seen. “I’ll be your wife in New York.”

Jughead doesn’t have any other words. Instead, guides her to the bed and uses his mouth to butterfly kisses along her jaw and down the column of her neck, at the bottom of her stomach just below her bellybutton and then - once he’s removed her coat and sweater - all the way up her stomach. He unfastens her bra too, slipping the little clasp at the front out of its home so he can lay his lips to her breasts, around her left nipple and then her right until her back is arching and she tugs gently on his hair so he’ll kiss her mouth again.

Her fingers are working the button of his pants through the hole all the while and then when she finally frees it, she uses her feet to tug them down so they’re in a dark puddle at his ankles. He does the rest, kicking them over the edge of the bed before pulling off his sweater and t-shirt, and then gets to work on Betty’s jeans so she’s lying in only the pretty pink lace thong she’d bought last weekend in New York.  

He takes a moment just to look at her stretched out across the bed with mussed hair and slightly swollen lips, and thinks again about how he wants to grab his camera: take shot after shot after shot of her lying there uncovered, waiting for him with goosebumps covering her flesh and her pupils wide with excitement. 

“Jug,” she whispers, and it shakes him out of his little reverie. 

His hands automatically reach for the lace and he fingers it delicately, taking his time to inch the material down her thighs. When he drops his head to kiss her centre though, she stops him, hand reaching inside the waistband of his boxers. 

“Just you,” she says.  _ Not your hands; not your mouth. _

Betty strokes him until he’s fully hard and then helps him out of his underwear, hooking one of her legs so she’s open to him. He sinks home slowly, the warm, silky feeling of her body drawing a heavy exhale that he breathes against the shell of her ear. She gasps too as he stretches her, drawing away momentarily before pushing back deeper. 

Soon, he thinks, they’ll do this in their own bed, only she’ll be his  _ wife. _

She doesn’t go to the bathroom as soon as they’re done. She lies with her legs bent, knees resting gently against his as she traces her fingertips across his chest.   

“Betty Jones,” she announces quietly into the air. There’s a smile tugging at her lips, but he doesn’t want to force that name (and everything that comes with it: the past generations; Riverdale’s South Side; judgement) on her.

“You don’t have to take my name Betty.”

Her head jerks - almost like he’s slapped her. “Of course I want to take your name.”

“But…” he falters. “But you’re  _ Betty Cooper _ .”

She shakes her head. “I’m  _ yours  _ Juggie. Every part of me - name included.”

Her fingertips are soft against his jaw and her lips are like pillows when she lays them against his to say, “Let me be Betty Jones. Please?” 

His eyes prick with tears he won’t allow to fall. This name he’s spent so much of his life hating - wanting to  _ deny _ even - isn’t only accepted, but wanted. By  _ her. _

“Say it again,” he breathes.

Her voice is as soft as her eyes when she says with a smile, “Betty  _ Jones. _ ”

He crushes his mouth to hers, pressing every ounce of gratitude within him into her lungs, and a sort-of half-squeak of surprise or, perhaps, relief, passes from her throat into his. 

  
  
  
  
  


The sky is the brightest blue Jughead has ever seen stretched over a wintery New York as he waits for Betty outside the Office of the City Clerk. His breath comes in quick bursts, dancing in swirling horizontal tornados as he feels again for the rings in his jacket pocket. At precisely ten fifteen - as she’d said she would - she arrives in a city cab which stops at his feet so he can open the door. 

He thinks he feels his heart literally stop when she steps out onto the sidewalk dressed in delicate lace that sweeps the floor. She’s holding a tiny bunch of what look like wildflowers and her hair crowns her shoulders in perfect golden waves and he’s speechless.

“You look so handsome Juggie,” she whispers, leaning into him and away from the cold and the street around them. 

“Betts,” he manages somehow. “You… you’re…”

She smiles and ducks her head before stealing a kiss at his cheek. “C’mon. It’s cold.”

Their single witness is a kind-looking lady named Celia who tells Betty she looks beautiful and Jughead that he’s a lucky man. He nods and chokes out, “I know,” as Betty smiles at him like he’s the only person she sees.

“I love you,” he tells her as they’re pronounced man and wife. “I’ll never stop loving you.”

She shakes her head as she leans to kiss him. “Me neither.” 

There’s a paparazzo outside the building when they exit but it’s not enough to have either of them pull away from each other, nor is it enough to stop Betty from kissing him at the top of the steps with her bouquet in her right hand and the cool metal of her wedding ring on her left brushing the side of his jaw. 

“So where to?” Jughead whispers into her ear as they descend. 

“Home Jug,” she replies. “Let’s go home.”

  
  
  
  
  


They’re lying in bed almost a week later when he gets an email from the Brooklyn Photography Exhibition confirming his place in the showcase. 

“That’s great Juggie,” Betty replies, stretching up to kiss him. “I’m proud of you.”

He thinks his dad has said those words once - when he was accepted into college maybe, or perhaps when he collected his high school diploma. His mom has never said them - not to his face at least - and he feels a strange tightening in his chest. 

“Will you come?” he asks. “You don’t have to talk about your picture or -”

“- Shhh,” she interrupts, rolling her eyes as him as she crosses her arms over his chest. “Don’t be silly: of course I’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and she traces his lips with the fingers of her right hand.

“You’re my husband. I’ll always go where you are.”

That hasn’t lost its shine yet: him being her husband; her being his  _ wife.  _ “It’s in March,” he tells her. The weekend before Easter.”

“So I’ll just be back from Paris in time.”

“Yeah,” Jughead replies. “About that. I know the shows can be really long and exhausting, but what if I came too? Photograph you under the Eiffel Tower at 3am so it’s just us? Take one of those night time river cruises? Eat too many macarons from Lauderée so we feel sick?”

“Sounds perfect,” she grins, stealing another kiss. “Although I’m not sure Saitō-Sano will appreciate me eating macarons before their show.”

Her comment, though flippant, sets him a little on edge. It’s a huge deal that she’s been asked to walk the runway at such a huge event, and he’s happy for her, but after everything, he knows it can’t come at the expense of her health. Not this time. 

“It was just a joke,” she tells him softly, like she’s realised her mistake. “I promise. You can get a picture of me eating a macaron under the Eiffel Tower if you like.”

_ A  _ macaron. He knows it’ll only be the one; knows his wife is disciplined enough not to eat the whole box, and he just hopes, silently, that there’ll be a day when she can eat an entire store full of desserts if she wants to without feeling guilty about it. 

“Maybe we can get indigo there,” he says. “Finally finish the series.”

“You need violet too,” Betty reminds him. “But there’s no rush right?” She brings her left hand away from his chest so she can hold it above his face and he chuckles. “I mean, you married me so I guess we’ve got the rest of our lives to finish the rainbow.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, kissing her ring and then her lips. “We have.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments, messages, kudos and bookmarks, and thank you also to those people who nominated me for the Bughead fanfiction awards on Tumblr. It really means so much that people enjoy this little story. X

_Came to you with a broken faith_

_Gave me more than a hand to hold_

_Caught before I hit the ground_

_Tell me I'm safe; you've got me now_

 

“You know,” Betty says, rolling from her stomach onto her side so she can face Jughead better. “I’d have liked a few more pictures with you in them.”

“Nah,” he shrugs. “One’s enough.”

One is _not_ enough, Betty knows (and so, she suspects, does her husband) but the single photograph he’s referring to is pretty perfect. They’d waited until the evening, until the sky was dark and providing enough of a contrast to the snow, and then they’d taken a cab to the waterfront at the end of Washington Street to get a picture of just the two of them still in their wedding clothes. Jughead had brought his tripod and had placed the camera pointing towards the bridge, checking repeatedly as he played around with the focusing whether she was warm enough.

She’d been wrapped in a huge padded coat reaching almost to her ankles but she thinks even now that she could’ve stood there in just her wedding dress and not been cold.

They’d walked hand in hand to a particular spot on the street he’d earmarked as being the right place to stand, and he’d held her left hand in both of his, her right holding onto the little bouquet of wildflowers she’d managed to source from an eager-to-please florist. Betty had looked into the lens with a beaming smile on her face, waiting for the shutter to snap, and judging by their resulting photograph, Jughead had been watching her the whole time.

She knows he loves her, but if she’d ever had any doubts, that picture would’ve eradicated them completely.

“Okay come on,” Jughead says, hitting the forward arrow of his laptop. “You always get sidetracked with these.”

“Because they’re so pretty.”

“Yeah well,” he mumbles against her shoulder as he brushes his lips across her skin. “You make it pretty easy.”

The pictures of their wedding day - of _her_ on their wedding day - give way to the Scars project: part of the work that will form his _Darkness in New York_ feature for the Brooklyn Photography Exhibition. “I want you first and last baby, but I still can’t work out the order for the others.”

“First _and_ last?”

He turns to her like it’s obvious, trailing his index finger along the underside of her bare breast. “It begins and ends with you. Always will.”

Her skin erupts with goosebumps and she’s unsure if it’s his touch or his words. “Look critically for me?” he asks, dropping another kiss to her shoulder. “I’ll make coffee.”

She watches as he tugs on the pajama pants he’d been wearing earlier before they’d been discarded somewhere over the edge of the mattress, smiling at the sound his feet make as he disappears into the kitchen.

Betty studies the images carefully, making sure to take in every minute detail; making sure to look for links to the picture of her cupped hands beneath the waterfall in Greenacre Park as the smell of fresh coffee wafts through the air.

Jughead returns a little less than ten minutes later with two mugs of hot coffee and a toasted cinnamon-raisin bagel.

“I thought we could share,” he says when she frowns at the fact there’s only one. “Plus I might’ve already eaten my own bagel while I was waiting for the coffee.”

Betty knows she shouldn’t really eat what’s on the plate - even if it’s only half - when she has the Paris show to do in a week. It’s not like bread products are forbidden, but she’s well-aware that she doesn’t have the metabolism of Toni Topaz, nor the genuine aversion to gluten that Cheryl Blossom has. As if Jughead can sense her thoughts, he plants a kiss at her temple and tells her,

“There’s fruit in the kitchen: I can get you some.”

“No,” she replies quickly, resting a hand on his thigh to stop him from getting back up. “I can manage half.”

She drops crumbs between the keys as she tears off tiny pieces so the bagel lasts longer, but Jughead never complains. Instead, he props himself against their headboard so she can rest against his chest with the laptop on her thighs, and she knows he’s watching her as she looks at each of his photographs in turn.

“You really _are_ talented Jug,” she tells him softly.

He doesn’t reply - still doesn’t find it easy to take compliments, especially if they don’t follow one he’s given - but Betty _does_ feel him drop a kiss to her crown. She turns her face so her cheek meets his bare skin: her _I love you_ without words.

“This one should go second,” she says in reference to the photograph of the tattoo sitting over the cut lines. And Tatiana after that.”

  
  
  
  


They wake early to leave for Paris on the second Wednesday of March, when the weather outside belongs neither to winter nor spring, just is some sort of disappointing hybrid defined mainly by constant drizzle. Betty pulls on a pair of jeans and winces when they feel a little tighter than they had the last time she’d worn them. She tries not to let it suffocate all other thoughts in her brain, and is helped a little when Jughead gives her one of his sweaters to wear on the plane so there’s enough material to keep her warm if it’s cold.

It smells like him too.

She naps in the back of the cab on the way to the airport and only rouses when Jughead rubs his palm gently up and down her leg. It takes her a moment to realise they’ve arrived at JFK, her limbs only returning to normal once he’s kissed the last traces of sleep away.

“I think I could probably sleep for a month after this show,” she jokes, but Jughead’s eyes are serious when he replies,

“You’ve been working a lot. Maybe you should take a break.”

There are other projects though: the Autumn/Winter campaign for Alexander Lewis; a big interview for Glamour; the front cover of Women’s Health magazine. They both know taking a break (or, at least, the kind of break he means) isn’t in the foreseeable future.

“I’m fine,” she says, stifling the yawn that wants to escape as she opens the cab door.

A few fans ask to take her photo at the airport and Betty obliges as Jughead watches from the side with her bag and a bag of chips he’d bought once they’d gotten through security.

They eat breakfast in the far corner of a dark restaurant and then board the flight to Charles de Gaulle just before nine. They’ve booked two seats of course, but as soon as the seatbelt sign is turned off, Betty climbs out of her section, waits for Jughead to recline his chair all the way, and then burrows in beside him. The space is limited and they’re the only ones stretched out, but he tucks the blanket in around her anyway, brushes a kiss against her forehead and whispers,

“Sleep well baby.”

  
  
  
  


She wakes only a little before they begin their descent into Paris, Jughead’s hand on the warm skin of her stomach beneath the sweater of his she’s wearing. Her limbs feel less tired as she blinks sleepily against the blanket, registering the familiar scene of a Brooklyn Nine Nine episode on the little screen whilst stretching out her legs. Betty feels Jughead’s lips against her head as he senses she’s awake, and she turns in the tiny space to offer her mouth to his.

“Feel better?” he asks, pulling out his ear buds.

“Much,” she replies against his lips before kissing him again.

The evening air outside of the airport is biting cold and she’s thankful of the warmth of the cab they take to their hotel which sits on the Quai d’Orsay, overlooking the Seine towards the Grand Palais where she’ll be walking this year. It’s a huge venue and she knows Jughead is excited for the pictures he can get here of the beautiful domed roof and the stone steps leading to the front of the building.

They’ve already discussed where he can get the best photographs of _her:_ the corner between Avenue de la Bourdonnais and Avenue Silvestre de Sacy at night; Place du Tertre right after sunrise; Galerie Vivienne, but Betty wants her own pictures, like a selfie from the top of the Sacré-Coeur that any other tourists would take. It’s not her husband’s thing, she knows, but she wants a stupid photo of the two of them that she can save as her lock screen or frame for their apartment.

The hotel is very elegant, with a dark staircase leading to the reception desk at which an impeccably dressed man named Jean-Pierre greets them with,

“Ah Madame Cooper-Jones, Monsieur Jones, welcome to Hotel Juliana,” in what is quite possibly the thickest French accent Betty has ever heard. “For fashion week oui?”

“Yes,” she replies. “And a little sight-seeing.”

“Well welcome,” Jean-Pierre says again. “We ‘op you enjoy your stay.”

He hands over the key card and very swiftly ensures their bags are taken by the bellboy to be brought to their room later.

she still hasn’t grown used to this level of service, and Jughead is beyond uncomfortable, but was adamant they should have somewhere nice to stay if she was going to be exhausted by walking the shows and then attending specific after parties to match her agency’s brand.

Still, their room overlooks the river and there’s a bed that’s near to double the size of the one in their apartment, and she’s in _Paris_ with her _husband._ It’s a pretty great deal.

  
  
  
  


“Line!” someone shouts as the first chord of the music sounds out over the speakers. It’s so loud and brash, Betty thinks, for a place that’s so beautiful. She pulls back her shoulders and lifts her chin, and shifts her weight from her left foot to her right as the only model in front of her steps forward.

_Three, two, one_ she counts down in her head and then steps out too under the harsh lighting and the camera flashbulbs. At the end of the runway she places her hand on her hip and leans forward as a flash goes off in front of her eyes, momentarily disorientating her. She’s incredibly aware that she can’t lose timing and so turns on the correct beat, her legs feeling a little unsteady and her brow feeling hot.

Backstage, she quickly steps out of the dress she’s been wearing to change into her next outfit comprising of a pair of high-waisted pants and a dress shirt. The collar is stiff and feels like it’s choking her, but she takes her place at the back of the line with four seconds to spare.

She sets out again with the inside of her cheeks pulled in between her teeth and feels even more unsteady than before as soon as the flashes reach her eyes. Somehow though, she manages not to trip and gets back to the rack of clothing for her final change into a sweater and skirt.

With the few seconds spare she has before heading back out to the catwalk again, Betty fans herself and silently reminds her body it can have water and food once she’s done. Out under the lights, she feels a wave of heat roll up her body, followed by the sudden horrible realisation that she’s going to throw up. She focuses only on her breathing so that she doesn’t cover the runway (or worse, any journalists or guests) with vomit and so misses a beat. As soon as she’s backstage, she vomits into a trash can with a feeling of intense relief that she’s managed to hold it just long enough.

It’s a long time - only when she’s pulling on the clothes she’d arrived in ready to leave the show - that someone asks if she’s okay.

“I think I just got a little overheated,” she replies. “That’s all.”

Jughead of course, notices as soon as she enters their room that she’s sick, insisting that she lay down while he runs her a bath. He even removes her boots and socks before running his hand over her hair so it’s away from her face.

“You don’t have to go to that party tonight do you?” he asks. “Especially if you’re sick.”

“Kind of,” she answers, resigned. “Yeah. But I feel a little better. I’m just tired.”

“Baby -”

“- Take a bath with me?” she cuts in so he won’t finish that sentence. So he won’t try to convince her to stay.

His lips press a kiss to her temple and then he heads back into the bathroom.

  
  
  
  


The party, as she’d predicted, is full of models and singers and actors she knows by sight but not to talk to. Cheryl Blossom is there, cosied up to Toni Topaz in the corner of a large velvet couch, and Betty checks the time on her phone. 11pm.

She decides she’ll stay another hour before taking a cab back to the hotel, and forces the sip of vodka cranberry she takes down her throat.

As usual at such events, there is a queue for the bathroom. The lines never move quickly at these types of places (almost undoubtedly because people are doing _other_ kinds of lines off the bathroom counter)

Finally though, she makes it to the stall and is just about to close the door when, panicked, a fellow model she’d walked the show earlier with asks her for a tampon. Betty takes the single one she has out of her purse and hands it over with a smile as the other girl takes it gratefully. She slides the lock to red and that’s when she realises.

She’s late.

Not just a couple weeks late either - close to a month.

As soon as she’s peed, she brings up the uber app on her phone, not even waiting until she’s washed her hands before ordering a car back to the hotel. Racking her brain on the ride over, she tries to work out how long it’s been since she had a period and concludes that it might be close to eight weeks. Her hands are hot and sweaty and her throat turns dry and all she wants is to get to Jughead.

He’s obviously surprised when she enters their room, and jumps off of the bed with an expression of concern.

“I think… I think I might be pregnant,” she blurts out before he can ask why she’s back so soon.

“You -”

“My period’s late and I feel so tired all the time and today I was sick and -”

“- Betts,” he cuts in, slowing her down with his hands cupping her elbows. “You…” He swallows heavily. “You really think you might be?”

His eyes are shining and there’s a very definite _something_ spreading wider across his face. “I think so,” she admits in a whisper, not really daring to think about what it means.

“You should take a test,” he tells her gently. “We can get one in the morning.”

Betty nods. “Okay.”

Jughead slips off her coat and then presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “Okay.”

  
  
  


The following morning, Betty watches as Jughead pays for the test with this look on his face that she thinks might say _yeah, I think I got my wife pregnant,_ and as much as she isn’t entirely sure how she feels, she knows it isn’t the devastating blind panic that had been there the last time. The cashier places the box inside of a white plastic bag which Jughead then tucks safely inside of his coat pocket before taking her hand back in his so they can head back to the hotel. Her stomach is fluttering - butterflies of nerves, she decides (and maybe excitement too).

“Where do you want me to wait?” he asks when they’ve reached their room.

She tilts her head a little to the side, watching as his lips twitch at handing over the box. “Jug,” she says softly. “Where do you _want_ to wait?”

His eyes are shining. “With you.”

Betty leaves the door to the bathroom open so he can follow her - which he does, resting against the counter as she pulls down her tights and then her underwear. Jughead looks away while she pees onto the stick and then inches slightly to the right when she’s done so she can wash her hands.

The stick rests on the counter and when she’s dried her palms, he takes them in his, pressing kisses against the line of crescents.

“Whatever the outcome,” he says. “It’ll be okay. _We’ll_ be okay.”

She nods, not even needing to ask him to say those words again so he can convince her. “I know.”

A minute ticks by, during which Jughead opens and closes his mouth several times without speaking. After a further twenty-seven seconds (she’s counting meticulously) he _does_ speak.

“What do you want it to say?”

Betty’s head jerks.

“Whatever it says, we’ll be okay with right?” he asks. “But…” he steps closer and only then does she realise he’s shaking. “I want so much for it to be positive,” he admits in a whisper.

“Jug…”

“I want a family with you Betty. I’ve pictured it and… and it’s _everything_.”

Her heart feels like it’s beating in her throat and her ears and her chest all at once. She tries not to see the image he’s referring to but it’s too late. “I think I’m scared to want it,” she confesses. “But I do.”

His arms wrap around her and into the safety of his chest, she whispers, “I want it so much.”

Two minutes have definitely passed by the time she steps back. She looks at Jughead and then at the little white stick which is lying face-down, and then back at Jughead again.

“If it’s not...if _we’re_ not…” His voice seems thick and it clogs her mouth too. “I’d like to try.”

She nods again before she can even fully register what he means. “Do you want to turn it over?”

In her heart, in those few seconds before his gasp bursts through the silence, she already knows. “It’s positive.”

  
  
  
  


It already feels different. This time, knowing she’s pregnant - knowing she’s pregnant with _Jughead’s_ baby - makes her chest feel like someone’s stuck a helium balloon inside of it. _This_ time, she’s married and her husband is wearing a cheshire cat grin as he whispers kisses across her stomach, his thumbs stroking, stroking - always stroking - her hip bones.

She’s completely naked, not because they’ve had sex, but because all he wants to do is look at her. Eventually he lifts his head away in preparation to leave this bed she’s stretched out across, and Betty watches him collect his camera from the coffee table before returning. He looks through the lens and plays with the focus and then angles the device downwards from his vantage point above her.

“Fuck baby,” he breathes as the shutter snaps. “You’re stunning.”

She wonders what he sees: there’s nothing outwardly different about her. And then, she wonders what he’ll think when there _is_ \- when her body begins to stretch and pull with their child in a way that’s glaringly obvious - and she decides she can’t wait to find out.  

  
  
  
  


The guilt hits a little later than she might’ve expected it to. It’s excitement that triggers it: hers, his, _theirs._ It’s unfair, Betty thinks, that the last time, there wasn’t even _one_ person who was excited for it to exist, let alone two. It’s unfair also, that there wasn’t a large, gentle palm resting over its home inside of her. Nobody had laid kisses across her stomach or promised to love it forever or taken photograph after photograph even though they can’t even see it yet.

She doesn’t press her nails into her skin, but lord does she want to.

As quietly as she can, Betty slips out of bed and into the bathroom. The positive test is still resting on the counter, now clean but still displaying the tiny plus sign. She manages to hold back her tears until the door is all the way closed, and then they fall.

She presses her hand to her mouth so the sound won’t escape. She’s almost certain she’s managed not to wake Jughead who’d been snoring very slightly as he’d rolled over onto his back. That is, until she hears a quiet knock on the door, followed by a tentative,

“Betty?”

She sniffs a couple of times, furiously wiping at her eyes to stem the tears but it doesn’t work and the door opens anyway.

“Baby,” he chokes so softly that she cries even harder. Every part of him is gentle with her as he steps onto the tiles to take her against him, right hand stroking through her hair; left hand curving around her hip and then sliding until his palm is rubbing circles against her spine. His lips kiss her crown and his exhales are warm against her scalp.

It’s so much love that she doesn’t know what to do with it.

Time passes. Betty can’t decipher how much, but when her tears finally stop, she realises Jughead’s chest is damp with them.

“I’m sorry,” she apologises, but he shakes his head.

“You’re okay,” he tells her. “The baby? The baby’s okay?”

He moves his hand so that it’s resting against her stomach, thumb smoothing over the strip of skin left bare by her camisole. She covers it with her own, realising then that her fingers are shaking. “It’s fine,” she replies. “We’re fine.”

We. _The baby and me._

“I just…”

“You deserved this the last time too,” he whispers. There are goosebumps on her skin and a lump the size of a boulder in her throat that he knows exactly why she’s upset. “And I’m so sorry you didn’t have it.”

It’s her turn to shake her head. “I didn’t deserve it, but… but it… the… _it_ did.”

He splays his fingers so he can link them with hers and then says, “You both did.”

  
  
  
  


The evening of Jughead’s photography exhibition, Betty spends the half hour before they leave with her head in the toilet bowl. She’s wearing an expensive dress and expensive shoes so she looks nice as she stands beside him; so people who see the photograph of her palms and then the one of her prescription bottle know it got better.

Except there is, currently, a series of creases in the material where she’s kneeling on the bathroom floor heaving the contents of her stomach into the porcelain.

Jughead of course is crouched down beside her, rubbing her back as she coughs, her hand shakily wiping at her mouth. Her hands her a cool, damp washcloth and reminds her,

“You don’t have to come tonight.”

She shakes her head, finally sitting back on her heels as she flushes the chain and then dabs at her face with the damp cotton material. “I’m okay now. I want to come.”

He eyes her warily like he’s not entirely convinced, but stands and offers her his hand. She takes it, rising slowly so she’s not overcome with sudden nausea again, and proceeds to rinse the washcloth before brushing her teeth.

It’s dark outside and she’s pretty certain the uber Jughead had requested earlier will be currently on route elsewhere. He busies himself, while she spits and rinses and spits and rinses, with collecting their coats from the tiny built-in closet. They’re draped over his forearm when she flicks off the bathroom light, and his eyes are soft when they take her appearance in.

“You think I should redo my hair?” Betty asks. “Maybe I messed it up.”

He half-laughs: a little burst of a breath as a grin twitches at his lips. “You’re so beautiful baby.”

She wants to duck her head. It’s still an instinct to hide from his compliments; still a battle not to counter them with something negative. But she holds her chin upwards as she takes her coat and shrugs it over her shoulders. “Thank you.”

They arrive at the gallery only a fraction later than they’d planned. They’re offered champagne but both decline and a helpful waitress brings them each a glass of sparkling grape juice. Jughead leads her over to his exhibition with his left palm warm on the bottom of her back, and she leans into his side to say,

“I’m so proud of you.”

His hand twitches, his fingers scrunching so she feels the edges of his fingertips sink a little way into her skin. That’s _his_ reaction: discomfort at any kind of praise that means something. She nudges her nose against his jaw and inhales before adding, “I love you.”

His fingers flatten again as he slides his hand a little higher up her back. “I love you too.”

  
  
  
  


Of course, as Betty had anticipated it would be, her husband’s exhibition is a success. There are a handful of journalists asking him questions and if he’d mind talking with them for a few moments, and she watches as he discusses animatedly the inspiration behind certain shots. His eyes slide frequently to her - checking she’s okay; checking that she’s not too tired - and each time she nods with a smile: a silent _do your thing; I’m fine._

As he’s talking with the editor of _Aperture_ Magazine, Betty herself is approached by a lady who introduces herself as Annie Laughton: health and fitness editor of _We_ magazine.

“I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about your boyfriend’s mental health series,” she explains.

“My husband,” she corrects, and doesn’t feel remotely bad about it. She wants everyone to know just how important that ring on her left hand is; wants everyone to know what it symbolises.

“Your husband,” Annie smiles. “My apologies - I knew that after seeing that stunning photograph of your both outside of the City Clerk’s Office. Congratulations,” she adds.

Betty smiles and toys with the plain band on her left hand. “Thank you.”

“Would you mind?” she asks again. “If we talked?”

“Of course,” Betty nods.

“How did it feel to take that initial brave leap and let your husband photograph your scars?”

The questions are thoughtful and sensitive and she answers every one with an overwhelming feeling of calm. Jughead continues to check she’s okay and she continues to twitch her lips just enough that he knows she’s fine and then, towards the end of the conversation with Annie, to stop worrying.

They end, finally, on a discussion about the stigma surrounding mental health, and why she feels more people don’t talk about it.

“For me,” Betty says. “It was my problem; my responsibility. It was a big enough burden on me, so I didn’t want anyone else to have to take that on.”

“What changed?” Annie questions.

Her gaze once again slides to Jughead, who, she realises, has now finished speaking to the editor of _Aperture_ and is sipping at his grape juice.

“My husband,” she answers simply. “He changed everything.”


	19. Chapter 19

_Yes, I love and I love and I love and I want you_

_It's gonna be till the end of time_

 

“That’s perfect,” Jughead half-shouts as he snaps the photograph of Isabel Flores Garcia on the Azteca, its mane flowing backwards in the sea breeze. He’s luckier this time: the window he has between getting the perfect picture and ending with a completely blurred shot is miniscule, but he’s managed to do it and he’s only a few more away from being able to head back to the hotel to where Betty is lounging beside the pool.

Isabel - their very talented rider of a model - guides the horse back towards where the team is standing and asks,

“Again?”

“No,” he replies. “I got it. Just the last change to go.”

She dismounts and leads the horse towards its owner so she can change behind the screens the magazine has brought for privacy purposes, and Jughead flicks through the images on the camera’s screen. His final shot will be of Isabel climbing on the rocks towards the edge of the cliff and he decides he’ll bring Betty here in the evening - if she’s not too tired - to watch the sunset.

His fingers itch to touch her, not because he’s forgotten how she feels (he doesn’t think he could _ever_ forget that) but because he has this constant urge to graze her skin all the time now that she’s carrying his baby. He just always wants to be near her.

“¿Listo para salir?” Isabel asks, reminding him he’s not quite done just yet. _Concentrate,_ he tells himself, _and then you get her sooner._

The journey back to the hotel once they’re done doesn’t take much longer than a half hour and he finds himself half-running to the room he now gets to spend a further two days in without interruption. There’s no low hum coming from the tv when he gets there and so he slides the card through the slot and enters as quietly as can in case Betty is napping, which, as it turns out, she is.

He watches for a moment the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin material of her camisole, and then heads across the room to open the large window. It’s a little noisy with the air conditioning on so this way she’ll stay cool without being woken.

Once Jughead is satisfied with the breeze, he turns on his laptop, keeping his hand over the little speaker until it’s made its usual ‘I’m getting ready’ noise. He plugs in the lead for his camera and then, when everything is ready, he begins downloading the images he’d taken of Isabel on the beach.

Now and again, as his images are saving, he checks Betty’s okay, fighting the urge he has to kiss her forehead which he knows will lead to a quick brush of his lips across her cheek and maybe her eyelids and then her lips, and he’ll get so lost in her that he’ll wake her up.

He’s controlled. He clicks onto the next image and enhances the colour of the sky and tries to remember a time he didn’t want to touch his wife in some way every waking moment.

She stirs as he’s focussing on a tiny blemish on the horizon that he can’t make out. It doesn’t take much to erase and correct the image, but the sound of her breathing changing from slow and deep to that higher-pitched half-whine she makes as she’s rousing from slumber grabs his attention.

Jughead rises from his chair so he can see her better as she lifts her head slightly from the pillow and blinks heavily.

“Hey sleepyhead,” he greets with a kiss against her temple.

“You’re back,” she mumbles, voice still thick with sleep as she reaches out lazily towards him. He’s experienced enough to know what that means now, that _come lie with me_ gesture that’ll never not make him grin like an idiot.

Lightly, he skirts his fingers from her wrist to the little dip in her bicep. “You caught some sun.”

“I was by the pool,” Betty answers tiredly as he lays down beside her. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too baby,” he murmurs into her hair as she closes her eyes once more.

  
  
  
  


She wakes properly around a half hour later, when the hottest part of the day has passed and the red-gold rays of pre-sunset are slowly bleeding into the blue. He’s been watching her the whole time, indulging in unabashed staring at how utterly beautiful she is even like this.

 _Especially_ like this.

“How was your shoot?” she whispers against his collarbone. “Sorry I didn’t ask earlier.”

“S’okay,” Jughead mumbles. The crisp consonants are stolen by her waves of ocean-salty hair so that what’s left are mainly vowel sounds. “You were tired.”

Her fingers twitch against his arm.

“It was good. I had a look through them while you were sleeping.”

“Will you show me after?”

“Of course. I thought maybe we could visit the same beach for sunset tonight - if you’re up for it.”

Betty lifts her head like she has to prove her words with actions. “I’m up for it.”

His right hand cards through her hair and her eyes close as she rests her cheek into his palm. “We’ll see.”

Gently, she lays back down so her cheek is resting on his chest and he resumes combing through her hair.

As it turns out, she’s very much awake enough to eat dinner on the terrace overlooking the ocean before the sun sinks low enough on the horizon that her skin is liquid gold in the last gasps of light. Jughead eats all of his pasta and then everything that Betty leaves in case it’ll make her sick: clams, langoustines, aubergine (although he suspects that last one is simply because it’s a little slimy in the mouth - not, he decides, a texture he’s fond of)

The sand is soft beneath his feet as they walk slowly along the shoreline afterwards, tiny waves lapping at their ankles as Jughead gets to live out the fantasy he didn’t even know he had until they arrived here. Betty is snuggled into his side as she so often is, her fingers entwined with his as the breeze picks up the hem of her sundress so it billows around her knees.

“I have to get a shot of you by the bathroom window,” he says. “In that white dress.”

“The long one?” she asks.

“Yes. With the lace straps.”

She turns her head, eyes curious. “Why that one?”

“Because it’ll make you look like an angel.”

She seems to think for a moment, opening her mouth as if she’s going to make a quip, but then she must decide against it. He wants to tell her she’s an angel anyway, but there’s something about the expression on her face that makes him decide to stay quiet.

  
  
  
  


Their bathroom window points eastward and so, after they’ve enjoyed a breakfast of fruit and pastries (and Jughead has fought the compulsion to stow away a couple of extra muffins for later) Betty changes from the sundress she’d worn the previous night into the white flowing one he’d asked to photograph her in. She’s taken off her bra too ( _“It’s a little tight Juggie”_ ) and he can see the peak of each of her nipples as she lays down in front of the intricate wooden shutter.

His camera is in the next room and he heads back out to retrieve it as Betty positions herself in readiness. He’s known that she’s pregnant for three weeks; has known, he supposes, what that means for them, and yet he’s unprepared for what he feels when he re-enters that bathroom.

Her breasts are round beneath the thin material of her dress, her hand resting over her stomach, and Jughead just stares and stares, his mouth dry as the desert. _My child is in there_ he thinks, and the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

“Jug,” she says gently, a lifting lilt to the final two letters - like she’s asking if he’s okay. His mouth is still too dry to answer and so he lifts his camera in front of his face, framing her with his lens as looks towards the hexagons of light.

He needs only one shot but takes six more so that when he lowers his camera again, there’s enough space around the lump in his throat to squeeze out the word,

“Perfect.”

She turns her head so she’s looking at him and he fights the desire to take yet another picture. He has to climb into the bathtub to kiss her but Betty swings her body slowly so she can fold her legs around his waist. Carefully, he rises with his camera now set on the wide ledge and his wife’s body held against his so he can carry her to the bed.

Later, he’ll photograph her in nothing but a single white sheet as she lies across the mattress, breathless and sated and looking at him in a way that makes him forget to breathe.

  
  
  
  


The damp, depressing air that seems to have been stuck over New York since early November finally seems to concede defeat to spring the week after they return from Mexico. It departs after a thunderstorm complete with hail, during which Jughead is lying on the couch in the apartment he and Betty share as she pipes a generous mountain of frosting on top of the caramel cupcakes she’d made earlier.

She must sense him watching despite her back being turned, and she pauses after completing a deft swirl to look at him.

“Are they okay? Enough frosting?”

He rises from the couch, shoving his phone into his pocket which he’s been using to research the best books he can read to the baby once it’s born, and loops his arms around her waist. There’s a very slight swell to her stomach now - almost non-existent - but he knows Betty’s body well enough that he’s certain it’s a new development. That it’s a development because of _their child_ inside of her.

“You didn’t have to Betts,” he tells her, dusting a kiss to her temple.

“What kind of wife would I be if I didn’t make cupcakes to meet your dad for the first time?” It’s a joke of a question, and usually he’d get hung up on her use of the word _wife_ for a little longer, but he’s nervous and the last thing he wants is for her to worry too.

 _He doesn’t really deserve salted caramel anything,_ Jughead thinks, _let alone these masterpieces you’ve spent the last two hours making._ What he says though, is different. “They look amazing baby.”

Though he can’t see her face, he can sense a proud smile. “Thank you.”

He swirls his finger around the edge of the bowl Betty has mixed the frosting in, gathering a mouthful that ruffles up like lace. He pops it into his mouth before she can playfully smack his hand or protest that he hasn’t even had lunch yet, and hums a noise of approval as the creamy mixture hits his tongue.

“They taste amazing too.”

FP arrives a few minutes after one which means he’s a few minutes late. He apologises as he dusts the water droplets off of his jacket which is leather (but, significantly, not Serpent uniform)

“Jughead,” he greets, standing awkwardly in a way that betrays how much he wants to pull him in for a hug. He doesn’t though - must fight the urge long enough that it just goes away - and instead turns his attention to Betty. “And you must be Betty.”

“It’s nice to meet you Mr Jones,” she says as she holds out her hand for him to shake. She doesn’t follow it up with the _Jughead’s told me so much about you_ that he half expects due to her overt politeness in these situations, and he finds himself feeling something akin to pride. He has, of course, told her everything about his father: some things as they’ve laid in bed; some things as he’s been reminded of his childhood at random intervals in time; some things simply because she’d asked.

She must sense though, he thinks, that it’s the wrong thing to say when so much of what he’s told her isn’t good.

“Oh come on now,” his father says with a smile and those glinting beetles for eyes. “Call me FP.”

“FP,” Betty repeats, like she’s trying it on for size. And then, she follows it up with, “Can I take your jacket?”

Jughead is the one to do that in the end though as the oven timer beeps and she excuses herself to remove the potatoes she’d been coating in butter a half hour ago. “Lunch is ready,” she calls, and he points out the little table they hardly eat at just in case his father hasn’t noticed the designated place to eat.

“I’ll get drinks,” he decides aloud, and gently grazes his palm along the bottom of Betty’s back as he passes, his thumb sliding just far enough that it skims over the side of her stomach.

She sets the potatoes in the centre beside a bowl of salad he knows she won’t expect him to eat. There’s grilled chicken too - one of the only meats she can stand currently - and what also looks like salmon.

“There’s meat or fish,” she tells them with a hint of self-consciousness. Jughead wants to tell her she needn’t worry: his dad likely won’t have eaten lunch this good for a long time.

He only says, “Looks great Betts.”

She nudges his foot with hers underneath the table and when he meets her gaze, she’s smiling.

  
  
  
  


Midway through the afternoon, some time between putting the final plate away and making tea so they can all have one of the caramel cupcakes she’d made earlier, Jughead senses Betty starting to flag. She gets tired quicker than him anyway, but now that she’s pregnant, everything seems to wear her out even faster than normal.

She’s stifling a yawn when his dad asks her about her “job” as he puts it. Jughead squeezes her left foot, kneading the sole as best he can with only one free hand and notes that she waits until her yawn has fully passed before opening her mouth to answer.

FP chuckles though and asks her another question he figures she’s not supposed to answer. “Either you’re working too hard or married life is pretty tiring.” Conspiratorially, he says, “It’s the second one right?”

She chuckles politely (because of course she does) but Jughead feels himself bristle. He knows his father doesn’t mean anything by it - and if anything, is probably trying to show Betty he’s on her side - but the words twist something inside of him all the same. He feels her hand on his shoulder though, rubbing lightly as she says,

“I don’t think Juggie could make being married any easier than he does.

FP seems caught for a moment, but then, tongue in the side of his cheek, jokes, “You know what they say comes after marriage.”

Jughead sees Betty’s palm settle over her stomach as she starts,

“Actually -”

“-We’ll see,” he manages to cut in just in time. Her eyes flicker to his as he shakes his head very, very slightly.

“All in good time,” his dad replies, but there’s a definite change in mood and he feels incredibly guilty about it. At that moment though, he witnesses Betty smother yet another yawn, and he figures it’s time to call an end to this visit. FP must notice too, and smacks his hands against his thighs.

“Right, I guess I should leave you guys to it,” he announces, rising to his feet.

“I’ll see you out,” Jughead replies, following his father to the door with a quick check back to see that Betty’s okay. She smiles and offers her right hand in a wave.

“It was great to meet you Mr Jones.” She blushes at the slip and then corrects herself. “FP.”

“It was great to meet you too honey,” he replies before stepping out into the hallway. Jughead closes the door behind them, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other right before his father says,

“So she’s pregnant huh?”

Betty can’t hear of course, but Jughead feels panic rise that she might, and glances worriedly at the closed door.

“Dad…” He’s stuttering. Panicking for something to say. “How…  I mean, she’s…. It’s…”

“Look Jug, I get why you didn’t tell me.”

“It’s still early,” he hears himself offer, like that ten-year-old boy who spent the whole night awake listening to bottles clinking and intermittent crying: _it’s okay - there’s nothing important happening at school today anyway._ And now he cringes because that’s not at all why he hasn’t told him that Betty’s pregnant. But, he considers, how are you supposed to tell your dad that he shouldn’t get to be the first person to find out; shouldn’t have that honour?

“You take care of her.”

He swallows. “Of course.”

They both look behind where Jughead is standing at the closed apartment door. “I should get back,” he says. _I_ want _to get back,_ he means.   

FP nods and slaps him hard on the shoulder. It almost hurts. “I’m happy for you son.”

Again, he swallows, his voice sounding strangely gravelly when he says, “Thanks.”

He watches as the dark leather he’s been so used to seeing adorned with a serpent grows less sharp. Inside, he hears the soft hum of the tv and doesn’t wait until his father is out of sight before heading back to Betty.

“That went well?” she guesses, crossing to meet him so she can snuggle into his chest.

He drops a kiss to her hair and then inhales that delicious scent of her shampoo. “Yes,” he answers. “I guess it did.”  

  
  
  
  


There’s a chain bookstore only two blocks away from the apartment. Jughead passes it most days if he’s heading towards the subway station or in the general vicinity of anywhere other than the tiny Chinese restaurant at the end of their block, and, despite his love for the innumerable shelves crammed with books, he doesn’t ever think much about dropping in. (He would rather shop in independent stores like the one he and Betty visited in that tiny lakeside town whose name he can never remember)

Today though, there’s a new window display featuring a collection of brightly-coloured balloons tied with a yellow bow, and a cardboard cutout of a little boy with light hair and dark eyes. Surrounding both the boy and the balloons are multiple copies of the same book.

Before he can think too much about it, he’s heading inside.

Jughead finds that the point of the book is to get it personalised with the name of your child, but neither he nor Betty even know the sex of the baby, let alone have a name picked out.

He’s about to leave again but there’s something about the colours and the picture and the way he’s feeling inside - like he’s being squeezed and inflated all at once - that makes him pick up one of the blank copies. He takes it to the counter where the woman working the cash register explains the purpose - he can get it personalised with, “your son or daughter’s name.”

His mouth is dry. In five months he’ll have either a son or a daughter and now that he’s thought about it like _that;_ had someone else state it so casually, he almost forgets to breathe.

“I… It….We haven’t picked a name yet,” he manages somehow.

The woman scans the barcode and slots the book into a paper bag. “Well when you do, I guess you could always add it in right?”

“Right,” Jughead answers with his tongue feeling clumsy in his mouth. He pays the total and heads back out into the street.

 _I could have a son,_ he thinks. And then, _I could have a daughter._

He forgets the glazed cronuts he’s supposed to be buying for Sunday breakfast - Betty’s latest craving (and, by default, his too) and ends up back in their apartment in a sort of dazed state. She’s still in bed, the sheets pooled at the now defined raise of her stomach, and he feels his chest clench yet again.

“Was it closed?” she asks sleepily, lifting her head at the missing pink paper bag and its usual accompanying aroma.

Jughead looks down at the bag he’s clutching tightly - sees it’s brown and not pink - and swallows. “I bought something else.”

“Croissants?” she asks hopefully, shifting so she’s sitting up with her back against the headboard. The sheets fall to her lap and he sees her stretched stomach beneath his t-shirt; feels some sort of possessive pride that terrifies him half to death, and then Betty tilts her head ever-so-slightly with a lazy smile and says,

“Juggie, we’re hungry.”

She’s joking of course. What she really means is _hurry up and join me,_ but he’s stuck on the word _we._ Stuck on the way she looks and the way he feels and the way he can barely process _any_ of it.

“I bought a book.”

Maybe she can tell by the way the syllables of each word wobble as they leave his lips, he’s not sure, but she draws back the covers enough that he knows she wants him to join her.

“Show me.”

He does, handing her the picture book like it cost the earth. “I don’t know why I bought it but maybe I thought I could read to the baby before it’s born? So it knows my voice reading a story?”

He hears Betty’s breath catch and she reaches her hand up to rake her fingers through his hair. “Jug.”

“Do you think I should wait?” he asks. “Until it’s born?”

She snuggles impossibly closer, running her hand over his - over the one that’s already stroking beneath his t-shirt at the rounded expanse of her stomach.

“We’re listening,” she tells him softly, and so he opens the book, his voice tinged with an emotion he can't name as he begins.

“All the things I wish for you.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re finally at the last chapter! I really want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who’s read, commented, left kudos, bookmarked and reblogged this story. I’m overwhelmed at the response it’s had, and I hope that if any of you are struggling - or you know somebody who is - you might just think about talking to someone.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this ending - let me know what you think! X

_ I hope you’re proud of what you’ve done. _

_ It’s a lifelong lesson and I’m not pretending when I say _

_ You cleared up my scars _

 

“Hold on Betts - let me,” Jughead says in reference to the fight she’s currently having with both the mattress and the pillows. They all seem to be conspiring against her and she wrestles against their softness but it’s futile: her back hurts and she can’t twist in the way she wants and she feels her face crumple despite the fact she knows she’s being kind of ridiculous about the whole thing. 

“Oh baby,” he says gently, half- tugging her into the position she’d been trying to reach. “We can do it another time when you’re feeling….” he trails off and Betty knows he’s been about to say  _ better. Better  _ as in more comfortable; less emotional. He’d only wanted to take her picture and she erupts into tears with the frustrating realisation that she has no idea exactly why she’s upset. She doesn’t even know if she  _ is  _ upset.

But being thirty-eight weeks pregnant and a shape that makes even the simplest of tasks impossible is taking its toll - on the both of them. 

“I’m sorry,” she gasps as she snatches at lungfuls of air and Jughead rubs the bottom of her back to relieve the ache.

“For what?” he half-laughs - an amused lilt flicking at the two syllables.

She sighs and arches her back further against his fingers which he sinks deeper into her skin. The knots in her muscles start to give way and she closes her eyes. “Being like this.”

“Don’t be,” he whispers against the skin between her shoulder blades. “You don’t have to be sorry about  _ anything. _ ”

“I don’t want you to think I’m unhappy or…” the tears start up again. “Or that I don’t want it.”

“Of course I know that,” he murmurs against her skin. “Baby, your body’s working twenty-four hours a day to keep this little one cooking,” Jughead tells her, hand soothing the stretched skin beneath her maternity nightshirt. Even his t-shirts are too tight around her stomach now.

Betty sighs out something close to pleasure as his fingers release a particularly tight knot and then feels a kiss on her shoulder. “Better?”

She nods. “Better.”

“I can get the picture another time,” he tells her, but she shakes her head.

“We always do it the first day of a new week.”

“You sure?”

She wipes at her eyes and feels the puffy skin of the lids and wonders how he can still want to photograph her like this. But then, when she’s lying without her nightshirt - the cool cotton material resting in a blue puddle on the floor somewhere by the side of their bed - and she watches the awe on her husband’s face as he traces his thumb beneath the swollen mounds of her breasts; her stomach; the peaks of each nipple, she stops questioning it. 

“I love you,” she tells him right as he snaps the first picture.

“Betts,” he says, sounding a little like someone’s squeezing the air from his lungs. “I… It’s so far beyond that.”

His eyes rake over every inch of her and she wonders just how her heart is supposed to cope when the baby is actually here.

  
  
  
  
  


She finds out a couple of days later. 

There’s finally a let-up in the snowstorm that’s blanketed the city for the past forty-eight hours and it’s as they’re walking from the little Chinese takeout place on the corner of their block that Betty feels the first twinges of something low in her abdomen. She doesn’t tell Jughead right away: it’s the first time she’s left the apartment in three days due to the combination of the snowstorm and his constant worry that she’ll slip on the ice, and he’d only conceded defeat in letting her accompany him to pick up their hot and sour soup and yangzhou fried rice because she’d played the ‘baby needs fresh air and you’ll be there to keep me safe anyway’ card. It’s a little cruel - guilt-tripping him whilst inflating his ego - but she feels only mildly bad about it when the cold air hits her face as they step back out into the street again.

Jughead is carrying the food in one hand and is clutching her hand tightly with the other, their arms looped so that if she  _ does _ slip, she’s not going anywhere other than into him. A new cramp starts up again as they’re halfway down the block - not too uncomfortable but enough that she knows it’s there. It’s almost like period pain, only it’s more exciting than annoying, and she leans her weight further into Jughead.

In the elevator up to their apartment, he presses his fingers into her back like he always does to take the ache out of her lower spine, and she wonders whether this’ll be the last time it’s just the two of them riding back up to the third floor. They eat on the couch because the chairs at the kitchen table are uncomfortable, and Jughead sets the latest episode of some prison documentary series he’s currently obsessed with to play in the background.  

Betty finishes all of her soup and half her portion of rice, and as always, Jughead eats what she can’t. There’s usually a slight pang in her chest when she sees him doing so - she knows money was tight for his family as he was growing up, and more often than not there wasn’t food in the cupboards for him to just grab whenever he was hungry. She knows it won’t be like that for this baby; knows Jughead will make  _ sure _ it won’t be, and she soothes her stretched skin with her left hand.

“You feeling okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. Just a few cramps.”

His eyes widen. “Like  _ contraction _ cramps?”

“Not yet,” she says. “But I don’t think they’re far away.”

His hand joins hers on her stomach, his thumb stroking repeatedly at the line from her belly button down towards the waistband of her leggings. 

They go to bed as normal but Betty wakes again in the early hours of the morning with very definite contractions and the feeling that _ this is it. _ Jughead is still sleeping so she leaves their bedroom quietly, heading into the kitchen to make tea. 

She manages to catch the kettle just before it starts whistling, and pours the boiling water into the mug as another contraction starts up. They’re not terrible - not yet anyway - but she’s definitely more uncomfortable than she’d been the previous night. Perhaps the spicy soup has helped, she thinks as she strains the teabag against the side of the mug.

She’s halfway through when she hears the slight squeak of their bedroom door. Jughead emerges, rubbing his eyes and with his hair sticking up at odd angles. It makes her giggle, and she holds her hand out for him to join her on the couch.

“You okay?” he asks, kissing her temple. “Is something happening?”

“I think so,” she admits. “I didn’t want to wake you.” She smooths down his hair with her fingers, brushing back the wave that refuses to do what it’s been silently asked, and then rests her head against his shoulder. 

“Does it hurt?”

“A little,” Betty replies. “It’s okay.”

  
  
  
  
  


For the first time since she’s met him, Betty discovers that despite how calm and gentle he always is, Jughead still panics. 

At the hospital, they hook her up to a machine which measures the baby’s heart rate and another which monitors all of her vitals. She squeezes his hand with each contraction and when she accidentally betrays how much pain she’s in, he hits the midwife with a barrage of questions about pain relief and heartbeats and blood pressure. 

He stays by her side the entire time, dropping kisses into her hair even when she’s sweaty with the effort of pushing, her palm held tightly in his as their daughter enters the world.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor smiles, placing the wailing baby on Betty’s chest, and all she can think is  _ I love you so much already. _

She’s vaguely aware of the medical staff working around her - there’s blood on the bed sheets and somebody is easing her legs out of the metal stirrups they’d been hooked over, but she has a daughter now - a baby girl with Jughead’s dark hair and brand new pink skin and a mouth that’s searching for something to latch onto. 

“Betty,” she hears him say shakily, and knows what he means. 

“This is _ everything _ Jug,” she whispers. _ “Everything.” _

He’s staring down at her when she tears her eyes away from their baby girl long enough to glance up at him, his own eyes glassy and shining. “I know.”

The doctor tries to steal her away then, intent on weighing and measuring and wrapping her in a blanket, but Betty’s not quite ready for that just yet. Jughead’s hand is trembling as he strokes over their daughter’s tiny cheek, and it’s that which makes her burst into tears.

An awful, fleeting thought cuts across her mind - just briefly - to remind her,  _ you don’t deserve this. _

And then her husband moves closer, his hand stilling momentarily so that his fingers graze the bare skin of her breast where the hospital gown has fallen down slightly, and he says,

“She’s amazing baby.  _ You’re _ amazing. I love you.”

She cries all over again.

  
  
  
  
  


They don’t tell anybody for a while. There’s been so much noise for so long that it seems even more special (if it’s possible) that it’s just the three of them who know. That they get to be their little family - The Joneses - in peace for just a little bit longer.

“I was ready for her to be a boy,” Betty says once the nurses have all gone and the sky outside is dark and the bedside lamp is glowing a soft golden vanilla. “To name after you.”

Jughead clears his throat but his voice is stilted when he says,  _ “Betts.” _

“She’s  _ all _ you,” she says, stroking over their daughter’s tiny palm. It twitches and her eyelids flicker, but they don’t open. “She’s perfect.”

The mattress of the little bed dips as he moves closer. “I want to give her everything Betty,” he says. “She deserves  _ everything. _ ”

The baby’s eyes open, blue and bright - like Jughead’s. Betty feels her smile grow even wider. “She knows we’re talking about her.”

“What about Violet?” he asks. “I had this thought on the way over here…” he trails off as four tiny fingers wrap around his thumb. “We….”

She can tell he’s struggling; that his words are clogged in his throat. Somehow, he manages. “We didn’t finish the rainbow series. But… but maybe  _ she’s _ the end.”

“Violet,” Betty tries out. “Violet Jones.”

Her heart feels like it’s beating in her throat. Jughead’s hand squeezes hers and she just  _ knows. _

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Go steady baby!” Jughead calls from the porch as they watch the fantasy he’d shared that one afternoon as they’d laid in bed in Italy play out in front of them. It’s almost identical: a house by the lake with a log store; a docile Sheepdog they let their child name  _ Hot Dog _ lying in the shade; sun setting in the distance. The only difference is that their daughter - bounding about barefoot - isn’t being chased by a younger brother in a miniature grey beanie, but by a still-unsteady-on-her-feet, two-year-old sister who shrieks in delight at finally catching up.

She’s distracted only a second later by the wildflowers growing near the side of the garage, and crouches to pick a few stems which she clutches tightly in her fist.

“Mama,” she says proudly, presenting them to Betty with a grin so wide that she feels her heart pull.

“Flowers from my flower,” she smiles, kissing the top of her hair as she hoists their youngest daughter onto her lap. “Thank you Daisie.”

She quirms to be put down almost instantly, and they watch the dark blonde ponytail bob up and down as she runs to join Violet in the long grass in front of the porch. 

“Did you pack yet?” Jughead asks.

She shakes her head. “I’ll do it later - after they’ve gone to bed.”

He looks at his watch. “It’s getting late. They probably need to wind down.”

Violet tags Daisie and they both scream with laughter. “Another five minutes,” Betty says. “I won’t see them for a whole day.”

Jughead’s arm tightens a little around her shoulders. “We can still come if you want?”

She shakes her head again. “Violet has school and you know how Dais gets when you have to drive a while. It’s just a meeting.”

“A  _ big _ meeting,” he reminds her with a kiss to her temple. Daisie trips over and Hot Dog lifts his head, but rests it back on his paws once she gets back up without incident. “I’m proud of you Betts.”

“We don’t know for definite that it’s going to be published.”

“Baby, they approached  _ you, _ ” he reminds her. “It’ll get published.”

She shifts on the porch swing, moving closer which results in them rocking a little harder. “There’s so much to write.”

With his index finger, Jughead tilts her chin so she’s looking up at him; so he can kiss her lips. He does, moving in slowly to seal his mouth over hers in the type of kiss she now recognises as reassurance. “You’ll be amazing.”

  
  
  
  
  


Betty leaves for the publishers in Manhattan early the following before either of the girls are awake. She kisses them each goodbye, smoothing down Violet’s dark waves and and tucking Daisie in a little tighter so she’s snug, and then she kisses Jughead who’s waiting in the kitchen with a travel mug of coffee and a toasted bagel that he’s wrapped in aluminium foil. 

“I’ll get crumbs on my dress,” she half-protests, but accepts it gratefully anyway.

“Call me when you get there?”

“Of course,” she nods, and kisses him a final time before heading out to her car.

The sun is only just beginning to emerge from the horizon, the air still relatively cool for a June morning, and it reminds Betty of the day she and Jughead rose early to photograph the sunrise over the bluffs back on the east coast all of those years ago. 

She starts the engine and the dry ground kicks up a cloud of dust as she pulls away and onto the road which runs by the house.

Traffic is fine until she approaches George Washington Bridge, at which point she ends up in a long queue no doubt stretching all the way from Broadway and West 95th. She feels a little sick - nerves and a long drive isn’t the best combination to go with the kind of high-intensity coffee Jughead makes - but attempts to reassure herself that she’s here making this trip because the publishing house  _ wants _ her to be; the book about models’ experiences of mental health (and in particular, self harm) in the industry already has willing participants. 

_ You can do it, _ she thinks as she crosses the river into Manhattan, and it’s such a stark contrast from all of the times on this tiny island that her mind told her she wasn’t good enough, that she feels tears prick in her eyes.

They don’t fall. 

She arrives at the office and calls Jughead to let him know she’s made it and to thank him for the bagel she hasn’t really managed to eat. “Don’t let the girls eat more than one cupcake before dinner - even if they do the thing on you.”

_ The thing _ is a look they’ve both mastered - Violet first, but with Daisie not far behind - and if it’s hard for Betty to resist, it’s damn near impossible for Jughead.

“I’ve got it Betts,” he tells her, and she can hear his smile over the line.

“I know.” There’s a pause in which she opens her mouth to say she can always drive back in the evening, but he beats her to it.

“If you cancel on Veronica, she’ll never forgive you and you need to rest before driving all the way back. We’ll be fine.”

She knows that, but still she doesn’t want to spend a night away from them all. “Yeah, I know.”

She ends the call after he tells her he loves her and before she actually  _ does _ cry, her emotions feeling somewhat fragile, and heads out of her car and towards the office. 

  
  
  
  
  


As Jughead had promised it would be, the meeting is a success. They _ do  _ want to publish her book - earlier than she’d imagined it might be ready too - and she dials home on the way from Midtown to the high-rise apartment building Veronica and Archie share to tell Jughead all about it.

She’s greeted by a rather grand foyer - not that she’d expected anything less really from Jughead’s best friend’s wife (and now, partly by default, partly by choice and partly by sheer force,  _ her _ best friend too) The concierge greets her a  _ good afternoon _ and presses the elevator button for her, despite the fact that she’s carrying only her purse and a box of macarons from Ladurée.

She figures he must’ve called up because Veronica is waiting with an open door as she steps out. Archie isn’t far away either, joining his wife with a grin as he says,

“Betty!” and pulls her in for a hug. 

They talk for a while - mainly about their impending parenthood. “I can’t believe you have two so close together and no housekeeper!” Veronica marvels, and Betty knows the joke that would be falling from Jughead’s lips right about now. “This one’s keeping me up at all hours and he isn’t even here yet.”

Archie lays a hand over her stomach, soothing the rounded bump as Jughead always did, and she smiles. “He’ll be great you guys.”

The Lodge-Andrews’ housekeeper shows she’s working on some sort of masterpiece judging by the smell coming from the kitchen, and Archie sniffs appreciatively as Betty excuses herself to the bathroom to wash her hands. 

“Guest towels are in the cupboard,” Veronica says, and briefly she wonders whether - had she continued modelling full-time - she might have an apartment like this with guest towels and underground parking and a concierge who controls the elevator. Either way, she figures it doesn’t matter: she has her house by the lake and a dog who occasionally eats the pebble they throw for him and a backyard that nobody else can see. 

Betty washes her hands and opens the cupboard to retrieve a towel, and it’s then that she notices the box of tampons - unopened - on the bottom shelf. They give her pause to think about the last time  _ she _ had to open a box of them, and she has the same realisation she’d had in the Parisian club bathroom over five years ago.

She’s late.

Quickly, she dries her hands and deposits the still-clean towel in the guest laundry bin, entering the living room again as Lucia joins them from the kitchen to announce that the food is ready. Everything is grilled and healthy to fit with Veronica’s pregnancy diet, and Betty helps herself to a greater portion of salad potatoes with the thought that she might now (once again) be eating for two.

She says her goodbyes a little after seven, citing an early start for tomorrow’s driving back home and the fact that Veronica will no doubt be exhausted, and climbs into her car. 

Her hotel isn’t too far away and she searches the nearest pharmacy on her phone in order to pick up a pregnancy test. She’s taken the last two with Jughead, but this time she’s impatient - eager to know if the underlying worry about today’s meeting has affected her cycle, or whether it’s something else. Something better.

She finds, as she comes to a stop close to a Walgreens, that she desperately hopes it’s the latter. 

  
  
  
  
  


The sky overhead is littered with stars as Betty pulls onto the patch of sandy gravel where she and Jughead park their cars. The porch light is on - out of habit she thinks initially - but then she spots her husband seated on the swing, his hands cradling a mug of coffee. Butterflies dance in her stomach and she half-runs to meet him until she can bury her nose at the crook of his neck to breathe him in. He smells like he always does: comfort and goodness, and she presses herself closer still. 

“You didn’t have to wait up.”

“You think I’m going to be able to sleep knowing you’re driving all the way from the city in the dark?” he scoffs. 

“I just didn’t want to be away any longer than I had to,” Betty says. “I don’t sleep when it’s not our bed.”

It’s not strictly true - it’s more that she doesn’t sleep when he’s not there, but there are some shoots he has to go on where  _ he’s  _ the one who’s away, not her, and she doesn’t want him to feel guilty about that. 

“Well our bed is waiting,” he replies. “Let me grab your bag.”

She shakes her head, capturing his arm. “Leave it for tonight.”

After a kiss for each of the girls, she changes into a clean pair of panties and one of Jughead’s t-shirts, then climbs beneath the covers to join him. He leaves the bedside lamp on so the room is glowing with kind golden light, and kisses along her collarbone as she recounts for the second time her meeting with the publishers and the suggested release dates.

“That’s so great baby,” he says, dancing his fingers along the underside of her rib cage. Her hips lift and he slides down the lace underwear so they reach her ankles. 

“There’s something else.”

He pauses in the slow butterflying of his lips against the inside of her thigh to look up. “Yeah?”

She runs her fingers through his hair so he’ll stay looking at her; so she can watch his face as she tells him, “I’m pregnant.”

  
  
  
  
  


Their son is born in January, a day after New Year, with dark hair and Jughead’s lips and nose, but with green eyes that’re all Betty. He doesn’t cry when the doctor pulls him from Betty’s stomach, but Jughead does. He’s sitting beside the operating trolley, a huge blue sheet separating them from being able to see what’s happening beyond her chest, but when their baby boy is wrapped up snugly in a blanket, it’s his daddy they hand him to. 

_ I want you to teach him to be everything you are, _ Betty wants to say, but she’s drowsy from the medication and her mouth won’t quite cooperate with her brain. She hopes that if she thinks it hard enough, Jughead will just know.

“Did you call my mom?” she asks later once she’s woken in a room that isn’t the operating theatre and her throat isn’t quite so dry and scratchy. Their son is still in Jugheads arms - she wonders if he’s even put him down - and she tries to scoot over on the mattress so he can sit down beside her. 

He clears his throat. “Not yet. I was wondering if you’d mind that I call my dad.” He adds the final word but he doesn’t need to. “First.”

The baby stirs, his eyes blinking open to focus on the two of them. “Hi little man,” she coos, stroking his soft skin with her finger. “Call him, Jug,” she says gently. 

He hands their son to her and pulls his phone from his pocket, pacing as it rings. It doesn’t take long for FP to answer.

“Hi Dad,” he says. “I just… I wanted you to be the first to know. You uh... you have a grandson.”

Betty can’t hear the other end of the conversation, but Jughead’s voice is choked when he says, “We’re calling him Penn. Short for…. Yeah.” 

There’s a smile growing on his lips and Betty looks back down at their baby boy - the fourth custodian of the Jones family name - who’s still watching her, now with sleepy eyes.

She has only one thought as Jughead ends the call and settles back at her side: _ This is what it’s like to be happy.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an upcoming fic in the works, so for those of you who’re interested, the first chapter of Dandelion Clocks will be released on Sunday (UK time) 
> 
> Much love x

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always HUGELY appreciated.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr at @itsindiansummer13


End file.
